MY  UNCLE  FLORIMOND 

i     SIDNEY   bUSKA    . 


ti'CSB    LIBRARY 


MY  UNCLE  FLORIMOND 


BY 

SIDNEY   LUSKA 

(HENRY  HARLAND) 

Author  of 

The  Yoke  of  the  Thorah 
and  others 


BOSTON 

D    LOTHROP  COMPANY 

FRANKLIN   AND    HAWLEY   STREETS 


COFYRIGHT,  1888 

BY 

D.  LOTHKOP  COMPANY. 


TO    MY    GRANDMOTHER 

A.    L.    H. 

IN  REMEMBRANCE  OF  OLD 
NORWICH  DAYS 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  French  Class Frontis. 

The  Birthday  Gift  of  Uncle  Florimond's  Sword        .        .  27 

Success ! 57 

Gregory  arrives  at  Krauskopf,  Sollinger  and  Co.'s    .        .  89 

Gregory  surprises  Mr.  Finkelstein  at  the  hand-organ        .  115 

"O,  Gregory  Brace!  Oh  I  Shame  on  you,"  said  Rosalind  155 

"  Gregory,  it  is  I  —  it  is  thy  Uncle  —  de  la  Bourbonnaye."  189 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS      .  .  .  II 

CHAPTER   II. 

I    MAKE   A   FRIEND 43 

CHAPTER    III. 

NEW    YORK 74 

CHAPTER    IV. 
AT  MR.  FINKELSTEIN'S 106 

CHAPTER  V. 

PRIDE    AND    A    FALL 1 39 

CHAPTER   VI. 

MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND        .  .  .  .  .  17 1 


MY  UNCLE  FLORIMOND 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS. 

BOTH  of  my  parents  died  while  I  was 
still  a  baby ;  and  I  passed  my  childhood  at 
the  home  of  my  father's  mother  in  Nor- 
wich Town  —  which  lies  upon  the  left  bank 
of  the  river  Yantic,  some  three  miles  to 
the  north  of  Norwich  City,  in  Eastern 
Connecticut. 

My  father's  mother,  my  dear  old  grand- 
mother, was  a  French  lady  by  birth;  and 
her  maiden  name  had  been  quite  an  impos- 
ing one  —  Aurore  Aline  Raymonde  Marie 
Antoinette  de  la  Bourbonnaye.  But  in 
1820,  when  she  was  nineteen  years  old,  my 
grandfather  had  persuaded  her  to  change 


12  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

it  for  plain  and  simple  Mrs.  Brace;  from 
which  it  would  seem  that  my  grandfather 
must  have  been  a  remarkably  persuasive 
man.  At  that  time  she  lived  in  Paris  with 
her  father  and  mother,  who  were  very  lofty, 
aristocratic  people  —  the  Marquis  and  Mar- 
quise de  la  Bourbonnaye.  But  after  her 
marriage  she  followed  her  husband  across 
the  ocean  to  his  home  in  Connecticut, 
where  in  1835  he  died,  and  where  she  had 
remained  ever  since.  She  had  had  two 
children :  my  father,  Edward,  whom  the 
rebels  shot  at  the  Battle  of  Bull  Run  in 
July,  1861,  and  my  father's  elder  brother,  my 
Uncle  Peter,  who  had  never  married,  and 
who  was  the  man  of  our  house  in  Norwich. 

The  neighbors  called  my  Uncle  Peter 
Square,  because  he  was  a  lawyer.  Some  of 
them  called  him  Jedge,  because  he  had  once 
been  a  Justice  of  the  Peace.  Between  him 
and  me  no  love  was  lost.  A  stern,  cold, 
frowning  man,  tall  and  dark,  with  straight 
black  hair,  a  lean,  smooth-shaven  face,  thin 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  13 

lips,  hard  black  eyes,  and  bushy  black  eye- 
brows that  grew  together  over  his  nose 
making  him  look  false  and  cruel,  he  inspired 
in  me  an  exceeding  awe,  and  not  one  atom  of 
affection.  I  was  indeed  so  afraid  of  him  that 
at  the  mere  sound  of  his  voice  my  heart 
would  sink  into  my  boots,  and  my  whole 
skin  turn  goose-flesh.  When  I  had  to  pass 
the  door  of  his  room,  if  he  was  in,  I  always 
quickened  my  pace  and  went  on  tiptoe,  half 
expecting  that  he  might  dart  out  and  seize 
upon  me ;  if  he  was  absent,  I  would  stop 
and  peek  in  through  the  keyhole,  with  the 
fascinated  terror  of  one  gazing  into  an  ogre's 
den.  And,  oh  me !  what  an  agony  of  fear  I 
had  to  suffer  three  times  every  day,  seated 
at  meals  with  him.  If  I  so  much  as  spoke 
a  single  word,  except  to  answer  a  question, 
he  would  scowl  upon  me  savagely,  and 
growl  out,  "  Children  should  be  seen  and 
not  heard."  After  he  had  helped  my  grand- 
mother, he  would  demand  in  the  Grossest 
tone  you  can  imagine,  "  Gregory,  do  you 


14  THE    NEPHEW   OF   A   MARQUIS. 

want  a  piece  of  meat  ? "  Then  I  would 
draw  a  deep  breath,  clinch  my  fists,  muster 
my  utmost  courage,  and,  scarcely  louder 
than  a  whisper,  stammer,  "  Ye-es,  sir,  if  you 
p-please."  It  would  have  come  much  more 
easily  to  say,  "  No,  I  thank  you,  sir,"  —  only 
I  was  so  very  hungry.  But  not  once,  in  all 
the  years  I  spent  at  Norwich,  not  once  did 
I  dare  to  ask  for  more.  So  I  often  left  the 
table  with  my  appetite  not  half  satisfied, 
and  would  have  to  visit  the  kitchen  between 
meals,  and  beg  a  supplementary  morsel  from 
Julia,  our  cook. 

Uncle  Peter,  for  his  part,  took  hardly 
any  notice  whatever  of  me,  unless  it  was  to 
give  me  a  gruff  word  of  command  —  like 
"  Leave  the  room,"  "  Go  to  bed,"  "  Hold  your 
tongue," — or  worse  still  a  scolding,  or  worst 
of  all  a  whipping.  For  the  latter  purpose 
he  employed  a  flexible  rattan  cane,  with  a 
curiously  twisted  handle.  It  buzzed  like  a 
hornet  as  it  flew  cutting  through  the  air; 
and  then,  when  it  had  reached  its  objective 


THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS.  15 

point  —  mercy,  how  it  stung!  I  fancied 
that  whipping  me  afforded  him  a  great  deal 
of  enjoyment.  Anyhow,  he  whipped  me 
very  often,  and  on  the  very  slightest  provo- 
cation :  if  I  happened  to  be  a  few  minutes 
behindhand  at  breakfast,  for  example,  or  if 
I  did  not  have  my  hair  nicely  brushed  and 
parted  when  I  appeared  at  dinner.  And  if 
I  cried,  he  would  whip  all  the  harder,  say- 
ing, "  I'll  give  you  something  to  cry  about," 
so  that  in  the  end  I  learned  to  stand  the 
most  unmerciful  flogging  with  never  so 
much  as  a  tear  or  a  sob.  Instead  of  crying, 
I  would  bite  my  lips,  and  drive  my  finger- 
nails into  the  palms  of  my  hands  until  they 
bled.  Why,  one  day,  I  remember,  I  was 
standing  in  the  dining-room,  drinking  a 
glass  of  water,  when  suddenly  I  heard  his 
footstep  behind  me ;  and  it  startled  me  so 
that  I  let  the  tumbler  drop  from  my  grasp 
to  the  floor,  where  it  broke,  spilling  the 
water  over  the  carpet.  "  You  clumsy  jacka- 
napes," he  cried ;  "  come  up-stairs  with  me, 


1 6  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

and  I'll  show  you  how  to  break  tumblers." 
He  seized  hold  of  my  ear,  and,  pinching  and 
tugging  at  it,  led  me  up-stairs  to  his  room. 
There  he  belabored  me  so  vigorously  with 
that  rattan  cane  of  his  that  I  was  stiff  and 
lame  for  two  days  afterward.  Well,  I  dare 
say  that  sometimes  I  merited  my  Uncle 
Peter's  whippings  richly ;  but  I  do  believe 
that  in  the  majority  of  cases  when  he 
whipped  me,  moral  suasion  would  have 
answered  quite  as  well,  or  even  better. 
"  Spare  the  rod  and  spoil  the  child "  was 
one  of  his  fundamental  principles  of  life. 

Happily,  however,  except  at  meal  hours, 
my  Uncle  Peter  was  seldom  in  the  house. 
He  had  an  office  at  the  Landing  —  that  was 
the  name  Norwich  City  went  by  in  Norwich 
Town  —  and  thither  daily  after  breakfast 
and  again  after  dinner,  he  betook  himself. 
After  supper  he  would  go  out  to  spend 
the  evening  —  where  or  how  I  never  knew, 
though  I  often  wondered ;  but  all  day  Sun- 
day he  would  stay  at  home,  shut  up  in  his 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  1 7 

room  ;  and  all  day  Sunday,  therefore,  I  was 
careful  to  keep  as  still  as  a  mouse. 

He  did  not  in  the  least  take  after  his 
mother,  my  grandmother ;  for  she,  I  verily 
believe,  of  all  sweet  and  gentle  ladies  was 
the  sweetest  and  the  gentlest.  It  is  now 
more  than  sixteen  years  since  she  died  ;  yet, 
as  I  think  of  her  now,  my  heart  swells, 
my  eyes  fill  with  tears,  and  I  can  see  her 
as  vividly  before  me  as  though  we  had  parted 
but  yesterday :  a  little  old  body,  in  a  glisten- 
ing black  silk  dress,  with  her  snowy  hair 
drawn  in  a  tall  puff  upward  from  her  fore- 
head, and  her  kind  face  illuminated  by  a 
pair  of  large  blue  eyes,  as  quick  and 
as  bright  as  any  maiden's.  She  had  the 
whitest,  daintiest,  tiniest  hands  you  ever 
did  see ;  and  the  tiniest  feet.  These  she 
had  inherited  from  her  noble  French  ances- 
tors; and  along  with  them  she  had  also 
inherited  a  delicate  Roman  nose  —  or,  as  it 
is  sometimes  called,  a  Bourbon  nose.  Now, 
as  you  will  recollect,  the  French  word  for 


1 8  THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS. 

nose  is  nez  (pronounced  nay] ;  and  I  remem- 
ber I  often  wondered  whether  that  Bourbon 
nose  of  my  grandmother's  might  not  have 
had  something  to  do  with  the  origin  of  her 
family  name,  Bourbonnaye.  But  that,  of 
course,  was  when  I  was  a  very  young  and 
foolish  child  indeed. 

In  her  youth,  I  know,  my  grandmother 
had  been  a  perfect  beauty.  Among  the 
other  pictures  in  our  parlor,  there  hung  an 
oil  painting  which  represented  simply  the 
loveliest  young  lady  that  I  could  fancy.  She 
had  curling  golden  hair,  laughing  eyes  as 
blue  as  the  sky,  ripe  red  lips  just  made  to 
kiss,  faintly  blushing  cheeks,  and  a  rich,  full 
throat  like  a  column  of  ivory ;  and  she  wore 
a  marvelous  costume  of  cream-colored  silk, 
trimmed  with  lace;  and  in  one  hand  she 
held  a  bunch  of  splendid  crimson  roses,  so 
well  painted  that  you  could  almost  smell 
them.  I  used  to  sit  before  this  portrait  for 
hours  at  a  stretch,  and  admire  the  charming 
girl  who  smiled  upon  me  from  it,  and  won- 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  19 

der  and  wonder  who  she  could  be,  and  where 
she  lived,  and  whether  I  should  ever  have 
the  good  luck  to  meet  her  in  proper  person. 
I  used  to  think  that  perhaps  I  had  already 
met  her  somewhere,  and  then  forgotten ; 
for,  though  I  could  not  put  my  finger  on  it, 
there  was  something  strangely  familiar  to 
me  in  her  face.  I  used  to  say  to  myself, 
"  What  if  after  all  it  should  be  only  a  fancy 
picture !  Oh !  I  hope,  I  hope  it  isn't."  Then 
at  length,  one  day,  it  occurred  to  me  to  go  to 
my  grandmother  for  information.  Imagine 
my  surprise  when  she  told  me  that  it  was  a 
portrait  of  herself,  taken  shortly  before  her 
wedding. 

"  O,  dear !  I  wish  I  had  been  alive  in 
those  days,"  I  sighed. 

"  Why  ?  "  she  queried. 

"  Because  then  I  could  have  married  you," 
I  explained.  At  which  she  laughed  as 
merrily  as  though  I  had  got  off  the  fun- 
niest joke  in  the  world,  and  called  me  an 
"enfant  terrible  "  —  a  dreadful  child. 


2O  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

This  episode  abode  in  my  mind  for  a 
long  time  to  come,  and  furnished  me  food 
for  much  sorrowful  reflection.  It  brought 
forcibly  home  to  me  the  awful  truth,  which 
I  had  never  thought  of  before,  that  youth 
and  beauty  cannot  last.  That  this  young 
girl  —  so  strong,  so  gay,  so  full  of  life,  with 
such  bright  red  lips  and  brilliant  golden 
hair  —  that  she  could  have  changed  into  a 
feeble  gray  old  lady,  like  my  grandmother ! 
It  was  a  sad  and  appalling  possibility. 

My  grandmother  stood  nearly  as  much 
in  awe  of  my  Uncle  Peter  as  I  did.  He 
allowed  himself  to  browbeat  and  bully  her 
in  a  manner  that  made  my  blood  boil.  "  Oh  ! " 
I  would  think  in  my  soul,  "just  wait  till  I 
am  a  man  as  big  as  he  is.  Won't  I  teach 
him  a  lesson,  though  ?  "  She  and  I  talked 
together  for  the  most  part  in  French.  This 
was  for  two  reasons :  first,  because  it  was 
good  practice  for  me ;  and  secondly,  because 
it  was  pleasant  for  her — French  being  her 
native  tongue.  Well,  my  Uncle  Peter  hated 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  21 

the  very  sound  of  French  —  why  I  could 
not  guess,  but  I  suspected  it  was  solely  for 
the  sake  of  being  disagreeable  —  and  if  ever 
a  word  of  that  language  escaped  my  grand- 
mother's lips  in  his  presence,  he  would  glare 
at  her  from  beneath  his  shaggy  brows,  and 
snarl  out,  "  Can't  you  speak  English  to  the 
boy  ?  "  She  never  dared  to  interfere  in  my 
behalf  when  he  was  about  to  whip  me  — 
though  I  knew  her  heart  ached  to  do  so  — 
but  would  sit  alone  in  her  room  during  the 
operation,  and  wait  to  comfort  me  after  it 
was  over.  His  rattan  cane  raised  great 
red  welts  upon  my  skin,  which  smarted 
and  were  sore  for  hours.  These  she  would 
rub  with  a  salve  that  cooled  and  helped  to 
heal  them ;  and  then,  putting  her  arm  about 
my  neck,  she  would  bid  me  not  to  mind 
it,  and  not  to  feel  unhappy  any  more,  and 
would  give  me  peppermint  candies  and  cook- 
ies, and  tell  me  long,  interesting  stories,  or 
read  aloud  to  me,  or  show  me  the  pictures 
in  her  big  family  Bible.  "  Paul  and  Vir- 


22  THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS. 

ginia "  and  "  The  Arabian  Nights "  were 
the  books  I  liked  best  to  be  read  to  from ; 
and  my  favorite  picture  was  one  of  Daniel 
in  the  lion's  den.  Ah,  my  dear,  dear  grand- 
mother! As  I  look  back  upon  those  days 
now,  there  is  no  bitterness  in  my  memory 
of  Uncle  Peter's  whippings  ;  but  my  memory 
of  your  tender  goodness  in  consoling  me  is 
infinitely  sweet. 

No;  if  my  Uncle  Peter  was  perhaps  a 
trifle  too  severe  with  me,  my  grandmother 
erred  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  did 
much  to  spoil  me.  I  never  got  a  single 
angry  word  from  her  in  all  the  years 
we  lived  together;  yet  I  am  sure  I  must 
have  tried  her  patience  very  frequently  and 
very  sorely.  Every  forenoon,  from  eight  till 
twelve  o'clock,  she  gave  me  my  lessons : 
geography,  history,  grammar,  arithmetic  and 
music.  I  was  neither  a  very  apt  nor  a  very 
industrious  pupil  in  any  of  these  branches  ; 
but  I  was  especially  dull  and  especially  lazy 
in  my  pursuit  of  the  last.  My  grandmother 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  23 

would  sit  with  me  at  the  piano  for  an  hour, 
and  try  and  try  to  make  me  play  my  exer- 
cise aright;  and  though  I  always  played  it 
wrong,  she  never  lost  her  temper,  and  never 
scolded.  I  deserved  worse  than  a  scolding ; 
I  deserved  a  good  sound  box  on  the  ear;  for 
I  had  shirked  my  practising,  and  that  was 
why  I  blundered  so.  But  the  most  my 
grandmother  ever  said  or  did  by  way  of 
reproof,  was  to  shake  her  head  sadly  at  me, 
and  murmur,  "  Ah,  Gregory,  Gregory,  I  fear 
that  you  lack  ambition."  So  very  possibly, 
after  all,  my  Uncle  Peter's  sternness  was 
really  good  for  me  as  a  disagreeable  but 
salutary  tonic. 

My  Uncle  Florimond  was  my  grand- 
mother's only  brother,  unmarried,  five  years 
older  than  herself,  who  lived  in  France. 
His  full  name  was  even  more  imposing  than 
hers  had  been;  and  to  write  it  I  shall  have  to 
use  up  nearly  all  the  letters  of  the  alpha- 
bet :  Florimond  Charles  Marie  Auguste 
Alexandre  de  la  Bourbonnaye.  As  if  this 


24  THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS. 

were  not  enough,  he  joined  to  it  the  title 
of  marquis,  which  had  descended  to  him 
from  his  father;  just  think  —  Florimond 
Charles  Marie  Auguste  Alexandre,  Marquis 
de  la  Bourbonnaye. 

Though  my  grandmother  had  not  once 
seen  her  brother  Florimond  since  her  mar- 
riage —  when  she  was  a  blushing  miss  of 
nineteen,  and  he  a  dashing  young  fellow  of 
four-and-twenty  —  I  think  she  cared  more 
for  him  than  for  anybody  else  alive,  except- 
ing perhaps  myself.  And  though  I  had 
never  seen  him  at  all,  I  am  sure  that  he  was 
to  me,  without  exception,  the  most  important 
personage  in  the  whole  wide  world.  He 
owed  this  distinguished  place  in  my  regard 
to  several  causes.  He  owed  it  partly,  no 
doubt,  to  the  glamour  attaching  to  his  name 
and  title.  To  my  youthful  imagination 
Florimond  Charles  Marie  Auguste  Alexandre 
de  la  Bourbonnaye  made  a  strong  appeal. 
Surely,  any  one  who  went  through  life  bear- 
ing a  name  like  that  must  be  a  very  great 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  25 

and  extrordinary  man;  and  the  fact  that 
he  was  my  uncle  —  my  own  grandmother's 
brother  —  stirred  my  bosom  with  pride,  and 
thrilled  it  with  satisfaction.  Then,  besides, 
he  was  a  marquis ;  and  a  marquis,  I  sup- 
posed, of  course,  must  be  the  embodiment 
of  everything  that  was  fine  and  admirable  in 
human  nature — good,  strong,  rich,  brave, 
brilliant,  beautiful — just  one  peg  lower  in 
the  scale  of  glory  than  a  king.  Yes,  on 
account  of  his  name  and  title  alone,  I 
believe,  I  should  have  placed  my  Uncle 
Florimond  upon  a  lofty  pedestal  in  the  in- 
nermost shrine  of  my  fancy,  as  a  hero  to 
drape  with  all  the  dazzling  qualities  I  could 
conceive  of,  to  wonder  about,  and  to  worship. 
But  indeed,  in  this  case,  I  should  most  likely 
have  done  very  much  the  same  thing,  even 
if  he  had  had  no  other  title  than  plain  Mis- 
ter, and  if  his  name  had  been  homely  John 
or  James.  For  my  grandmother,  who  never 
tired  of  talking  to  me  of  him,  had  succeeded 
in  communicating  to  my  heart  something  of 


26  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

her  own  fondness  for  him,  as  well  as  imbu- 
ing my  mind  with  an  eager  interest  in  every- 
thing that  concerned  him,  and  in  firing  it 
with  a  glowing  ideal  of  his  personality.  She 
had  taught  me  that  he  was  in  point  of  fact, 
all  that  I  had  pictured  him  in  my  surmises. 

When,  in  1820,  Aurore  de  la  Bourbonnaye 
became  Mrs.  Brace,  and  bade  good-by  to  her 
home  and  family,  her  brother  Florimond 
had  held  a  commission  as  lieutenant  in  the 
King's  Guard.  A  portrait  of  him  in  his 
lieutenant's  uniform  hung  over  the  fireplace 
in  our  parlor,  directly  opposite  the  portrait 
of  his  sister  that  I  have  already  spoken  of. 
You  never  saw  a  handsomer  young  soldier : 
tall,  muscular,  perfectly  shaped,  with  close- 
cropped  chestnut  hair,  frank  brown  eyes, 
and  regular  clean-cut  features,  as  refined 
and  sensitive  as  a  woman's,  yet  full  of  manly 
dignity  and  courage.  In  one  hand  he  held 
his  military  hat,  plumed  with  a  long  black 
ostrich  feather ;  his  other  hand  rested  upon 
the  hilt  of  his  sword.  His  uniform  was  all 


THE    BIRTHDAY    GIFT    OF   UNCLE    FLORIMOND'S   SWORD. 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  2Q 

ablaze  with  brass  buttons  and  gold  lace ; 
and  a  beautiful  red  silk  sash  swept  over  his 
shoulder  diagonally  downward  to  his  hip, 
where  it  was  knotted,  and  whence  its  tas- 
seled  ends  fell  half-way  to  his  knee.  Yes, 
indeed ;  he  was  a  handsome,  dashing,  gal- 
lant-looking officer;  and  you  may  guess  how 
my  grandmother  flattered  me  when  she 
declared,  as  she  often  did,  "  Gregory,  you 
are  his  living  image."  Then  she  would  con- 
tinue in  her  quaint  old-fashioned  French :  — 
"  Ah !  that  thou  mayest  resemble  him  in 
spirit,  in  character,  also.  He  is  of  the  most 
noble,  of  the  most  generous,  of  the  most  gen- 
tle. An  action  base,  a  thought  unworthy,  a 
sentiment  dishonorable  —  it  is  to  him  impos- 
sible. He  is  the  courage,  the  courtesy,  the 
chivalry,  itself.  Regard,  then,  his  face.  Is 
it  not  radiant  of  his  soul  ?  Is  it  not  elo- 
quent of  kindness,  of  fearlessness,  of  truth? 
He  is  the  model,  the  paragon  even,  of  a 
gentleman,  of  a  Christian.  Say,  then,  my 
Gregory,  is  it  that  thou  lovest  him  a  little 


3O  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

also,  thou  ?  Is  it  that  thou  art  going  to 
imitate  him  a  little  in  thy  life,  and  to  strive 
to  become  a  man  as  noble,  as  lovable,  as 
he  ? " 

To  which  I  would  respond  earnestly  in 
the  same  language,  "  O,  yes !  I  love  him,  I 
admire  him,  with  all  my  heart  —  after  thee, 
my  grandmother,  better  than  anybody.  And 
if  I  could  become  a  man  like  him,  I  should 
be  happier  than  I  can  say.  Anyway,  I  shall 
try.  He  will  be  my  pattern.  But  tell  me, 
shall  I  never  see  him  ?  Will  he  never  come 
to  Norwich  ?  I  would  give  —  oh !  I  would 
give  a  thousand  dollars  —  to  see  him,  to 
embrace  him,  to  speak  with  him." 

"  Alas,  no,  I  fear  he  will  never  come  to 
Norwich.  He  is  married  to  his  France,  his 
Paris.  But  certainly,  when  thou  art  grown 
up,  thou  shalt  see  him.  Thou  wilt  go  to 
Europe,  and  present  thyself  before  him." 

"  O,  dear !  not  till  I  am  grown  up,"  I 
would  complain.  "  That  is  so  long  to  wait." 

Yet   that   came   to   be  a  settled   hope,  a 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  3! 

moving  purpose,  in  my  life — that  I  should 
sometime  meet  my  Uncle  Florimond  in  per- 
son. I  used  to  indulge  my  imagination  in 
long,  delicious  day-dreams,  of  which  our 
meeting  was  the  subject,  anticipating  how 
he  would  receive  me,  and  what  we  should 
say  and  do.  I  used  to  try  honestly  to  be  a 
good  boy,  so  that  he  would  take  pleasure 
in  recognizing  me  as  his  nephew.  My 
grandmother's  assertion  to  the  effect  that 
I  looked  like  him  filled  my  heart  with 
gladness,  though,  strive  as  I  might,  I  could 
not  see  the  resemblance  for  myself.  And 
if  she  never  tired  of  talking  to  me  about 
him,  I  never  tired  of  listening,  either.  In- 
deed, to  all  the  story-books  in  our  library  I 
preferred  her  anecdotes  of  Uncle  Florimond. 
Once  a  month  regularly  my  grandmother 
wrote  him  a  long  letter ;  and  once  a  month 
regularly  a  long  letter  arrived  from  him  for 
her  —  the  reception  of  which  marked  a 
great  day  in  our  placid,  uneventful  calendar. 
It  was  my  duty  to  go  to  the  post-office  every 


32  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

afternoon,  to  fetch  the  mail.  When  I  got 
an  envelope  addressed  in  his  handwriting, 
and  bearing  the  French  postage-stamp  — 
oh !  didn't  I  hurry  home  !  I  couldn't  seem 
to  run  fast  enough,  I  was  so  impatient  to 
deliver  it  to  her,  and  to  hear  her  read  it 
aloud.  Yet  the  contents  of  Uncle  Flori- 
mond's  epistles  were  seldom  very  exciting; 
and  I  dare  say,  if  I  should  copy  one  of  them 
here,  you  would  pronounce  it  quite  dull  and 
prosy.  He  always  began,  "  Ma  sceur  bien- 
aim'ee  "  — My  well-beloved  sister.  Then  gen- 
erally he  went  on  to  give  an  account  of  his 
goings  and  his  comings  since  his  last  — 
naming  the  people  whom  he  had  met,  the 
houses  at  which  he  had  dined,  the  plays  he 
had  witnessed,  the  books  he  had  read  — 
and  to  inquire  tenderly  touching  his  sister's 
health,  and  to  bid  her  kiss  his  little  nephew 
Gregory  for  him.  He  invariably  wound  up, 
"  Dieu  te  garde,  ma  sceur  ch'erie  "  —  God  keep 
thee,  my  dearest  sister.  —  "  Thy  affectionate 
brother,  de  la  Bourbonnaye."  That  was  his 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  33 

signature  —  de  la  Bourbonnaye,  written  up- 
hill, with  a  big  flourish  underneath  it  — 
never  Florimond.  My  grandmother  ex- 
plained to  me  that  in  this  particular  — 
signing  his  family  name  without  his  given 
one  — he  but  followed  a  custom  prevalent 
among  French  noblemen.  Well,  as  I  was 
saying,  his  letters  for  the  most  part  were 
quite  unexciting;  yet,  nevertheless,  I  lis- 
tened to  them  with  rapt  attention,  reluctant 
to  lose  a  single  word.  This  was  for  the 
good  and  sufficient  reason  that  they  came 
from  him  —  from  my  Uncle  Florimond  — 
from  my  hero,  the  Marquis  de  la  Bourbon- 
naye. And  after  my  grandmother  had  fin- 
ished reading  one  of  them,  I  would  ask, 
"  May  I  look  at  it,  please  ? "  To  hold  it 
between  my  fingers,  and  gaze  upon  it,  ex- 
erted a  vague,  delightful  fascination  over 
me.  To  think  that  his  own  hand  had 
touched  this  paper,  had  shaped  these  char- 
acters, less  than  a  fortnight  ago!  My  Uncle 
Florimond's  very  hand !  It  was  wonderful ! 


34  THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS. 

I  was  born  on  the  first  of  March,  1860; 
so  that  on  the  first  of  March,  1870,  I  became 
ten  years  of  age.  On  the  morning  of  that 
day,  after  breakfast,  my  grandmother  called 
me  to  her  room. 

"  Thou  shalt  have  a  holiday  to-day,"  she 
said ;  "  no  study,  no  lessons.  But  first, 
stay." 

She  unlocked  the  lowest  drawer  of  the  big 
old-fashioned  bureau-desk  at  which  she  used 
to  write,  and  took  from  it  something  long 
and  slender,  wrapped  up  in  chamois-skin. 
Then  she  undid  and  peeled  off  the  chamois- 
skin  wrapper,  and  showed  me  —  what  do  you 
suppose?  ,A  beautiful  golden-hilted  sword, 
incased  in  a  golden  scabbard. 

"  Isn't  it  pretty  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Oh !  lovely,  superb,"  I  answered,  all  ad- 
miration and  curiosity. 

"  Guess  a  little,  man  petit,  whom  it  be- 
longed to  ?  "  she  went  on. 

"To — oh!  to  my  Uncle  Florimond  —  I 
am  sure,"  I  exclaimed. 


THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS.  35 

"Right.  To  thy  Uncle  Florimond.  It 
was  presented  to  him  by  the  king,  by  King 
Louis  xvm." 

"  By  the  king —  by  the  king !  "  I  repeated 
wonderingly.  "Just  think!" 

"  Precisely.  By  the  king  himself,  as  a 
reward  of  valor  and  a  token  of  his  regard. 
And  when  I  was  married  my  brother  gave 
it  to  me  as  a  keepsake.  And  now  —  and 
now,  my  Gregory,  I  am  going  to  give  it  to 
thee  as  a  birthday  present." 

"  To  me  !  Oh  ! ''  I  cried.  That  was  the 
most  I  could  say.  I  was  quite  overcome 
by  my  surprise  and  my  delight. 

"  Yes,  I  give  it  to  thee ;  and  we  will  hang 
it  up  in  thy  bed-chamber,  on  the  wall  oppo- 
site thy  bed ;  and  every  night  and  every 
morning  thou  shalt  look  at  it,  and  think  of 
thy  Uncle  Florimond,  and  remember  to  be 
like  him.  So  thy  first  and  thy  last  thought 
every  day  shall  be  of  him." 

I  leave  it  to  you  to  fancy  how  happy  this 
present  made  me,  how  happy  and  how 


36  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

proud.  For  many  years  that  sword  was 
the  most  highly  prized  of  all  my  goods  and 
chattels.  At  this  very  moment  it  hangs  on 
the  wall  in  my  study,  facing  the  table  at 
which  I  write  these  lines. 

A  day  or  two  later,  when  I  made  my 
usual  afternoon  trip  to  the  post-office,  I 
found  there  a  large,  square  brown-paper 
package,  about  the  size  of  a  school  geogra- 
phy, postmarked  Paris,  and  addressed,  in 
my  Uncle  Florimond's  handwriting,  not 
to  my  grandmother,  but  to  me !  to  my 
very  self.  "  Monsieur  Gregoire  Brace,  chez 
Madame  Brace,  Norwich  Town,  Connecticut, 
Etats-unis  d'Amerique."  At  first  I  could 
hardly  believe  my  eyesight.  Why  should 
my  Uncle  Florimond  address  anything  to 
me?  What  could  it  mean?  And  what 
could  the  contents  of  the  mysterious  parcel 
be  ?  It  never  occurred  to  me  to  open  it, 
and  thus  settle  the  question  for  myself;  but, 
burning  with  curiosity,  I  hastened  home, 
and  putting  it  into  my  grandmother's  hands, 


THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS.  37 

informed  her  how  it  had  puzzled  and  aston- 
ished me.  She  opened  it  at  once,  I  peering 
eagerly  over  her  shoulder ;  and  then  both  of 
us  uttered  an  exclamation  of  delight.  It  was 
a  large  illustrated  copy  of  my  favorite  story, 
"  Paul  et  Virginie,"  bound  in  scarlet  leather, 
stamped  and  lettered  in  gold ;  and  on  the 
fly-leaf,  in  French,  was  written,  "  To  my 
dear  little  nephew  Gregory,  on  his  tenth 
birthday  with  much  love  from  his  Uncle  de 
la  Bourbonnaye."  I  can't  tell  you  how  this 
book  pleased  me.  That  my  Uncle  Flori- 
mond  should  care  enough  for  me  to  send 
me  such  a  lovely  birthday  gift !  For  weeks 
afterward  I  wanted  no  better  entertainment 
than  to  read  it,  and  to  look  at  its  pictures, 
and  remember  who  had  sent  it  to  me.  Of 
course,  I  sat  right  down  and  wrote  the  very 
nicest  letter  I  possibly  could,  to  thank  him 
for  it. 

Now,  as  you  know,  in  that  same  year, 
1870,  the  French  Emperor,  Louis  Napoleon, 
began  his  disastrous  war  with  the  King  of 


38  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

Prussia;  and  it  may  seem  very  strange  to 
you  when  I  say  that  that  war,  fought  more 
than  three  thousand  miles  away,  had  a  direct 
and  important  influence  upon  my  life,  and 
indeed  brought  it  to  its  first  great  turning- 
point.  But  such  is  the  truth.  For,  as  you 
will  remember,  after  a  few  successes  at  the 
outset,  the  French  army  met  with  defeat  in 
every  quarter ;  and  as  the  news  of  these 
calamities  reached  us  in  Norwich,  through 
the  New  York  papers,  my  grandmother 
grew  visibly  feebler  and  older  from  day  to 
day.  The  color  left  her.  cheeks ;  the  light 
left  her  eyes ;  her  voice  lost  its  ring ;  she 
ate  scarcely  more  than  a  bird's  portion  at 
dinner;  she  became  nervous,  and  restless, 
and  very  sad :  so  intense  was  her  love  for 
her  native  country,  so  painfully  was  she 
affected  by  its  misfortunes. 

The  first  letter  we  received  from  Uncle 
Florimond,  after  the  war  broke  out,  was  a 
very  hopeful  one.  He  predicted  that  a 
month  or  two  at  the  utmost  would  suffice 


THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS.  39 

for  the  complete  victory  of  the  French,  and 
the  utter  overthrow  and  humiliation  of  the 
Barbarians,  as  he  called  the  Germans.  "  I 
myself,"  he  continued,  "  am,  alas,  too  old  to 
go  to  the  front;  but  happily  I  am  not 
needed,  our  actual  forces  being  more  than 
sufficient.  I  remain  in  Paris  at  the  head  of 
a  regiment  of  municipal  guards."  His  sec- 
ond letter  was  still  hopeful  in  tone,  though 
he  had  to  confess  that  for  the  moment  the 
Prussians  seemed  to  be  enjoying  pretty  good 
luck.  "  Mats  cela  passera  " —  But  that  will 
pass,  —  he  added  confidently.  His  next  let- 
ter and  his  next,  however,  struck  a  far  less 
cheery  note ;  and  then,  after  the  siege  of 
Paris  began,  his  letters  ceased  coming  alto- 
gether, for  then,  of  course,  Paris  was  shut 
off  from  any  communication  with  the  out- 
side world. 

With  the  commencement  of  the  siege  of 
Paris  a  cloud  settled  over  our  home  in 
Norwich,  a  darkness  and  a  chill  that  deep- 
ened steadily  until,  toward  the  end  of  Janu- 


4O  THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS. 

ary,  1871,  the  city  surrendered  and  was 
occupied  by  the  enemy.  Dread  and  anx- 
iety dogged  our  footsteps  all  day  long  every 
day.  "  Even  at  this  moment,  Gregory,  while 
we  sit  here  in  peace  and  safety,  thy  Uncle 
Florimond  may  be  dead  or  dying,"  my  grand- 
mother would  say;  then,  bowing  her  head, 
"  O  mon  Dieu,  sois  mis'ericordieux  "  —  O  my 
God,  be  merciful.  Now  and  then  she 
would  start  in  her  chair,  and  shudder ;  and 
upon  my  demanding  the  cause,  she  would 
reply,  "  I  was  thinking  what  if  at  that  instant 
he  had  been  shot  by  a  Prussian  bullet."  For 
hours  she  would  sit  perfectly  motionless, 
with  her  hands  folded,  and  her  eyes  fixed 
vacantly  upon  the  wall ;  until  all  at  once, 
she  would  cover  her  face,  and  begin  to  cry 
as  if  her  heart  would  break.  And  then, 
when  the  bell  rang  to  summon  us  to  meals, 
"  Ah,  what  a  horror ! "  she  would  exclaim. 
"  Here  are  we  with  an  abundance  of  food 
and  drink,  while  he  whom  we  love  may  be 
perishing  of  hunger  !  "  But  she  had  to  keep 


THE    NEPHEW    OF   A    MARQUIS.  4! 

her  suffering  to  herself  when  Uncle  Peter 
was  around ;  otherwise,  he  would  catch  her 
up  sharply,  saying, "  Tush  !  don't  be  absurd." 

And  so  it  went  on  from  worse  to  worse, 
my  grandmother  pining  away  under  my  very 
eyes,  until  the  siege  ended  in  1871,  and  the 
war  was  decided  in  favor  of  the  Germans. 
Then,  on  the  fourteenth  of  February,  St. 
Valentine's  Day,  our  fears  lest  Uncle  Flori- 
mond  had  been  killed  were  relieved.  A  let- 
ler  came  from  him  dated  February  ist.  It 
was  very  short.  It  ran :  "  Here  is  a  single 
line,  my  beloved  sister,  to  tell  thee  that  I  am 
alive  and  well.  To-morrow  I  shall  write  thee 
a  real  letter  "  —  une  vraie  lettre. 

My  grandmother  never  received  his  "  real 
letter."  The  long  strain  and  suspense  had 
been  too  much  for  her.  That  day  she  broke 
down  completely,  crying  at  one  moment, 
laughing  the  next,  and  all  the  time  talking 
to  herself  in  a  way  that  frightened  me 
terribly.  That  night  she  went  to  bed  in  a 
high  fever,  and  out  of  her  mind.  She  did 


42  THE    NEPHEW    OF    A    MARQUIS. 

not  know  me,  her  own  grandson,  but  kept 
calling  me  Florimond.  I  ran  for  the  doctor; 
but  when  he  saw  her,  he  shook  his  head. 

On    the    morning   of    February   i6th  my 
dear,  dear  grandmother  died. 


CHAPTER   II. 

I     MAKE     A     FRIEND. 

I  SHALL  not  dwell  upon  my  grief.  It 
would  be  painful,  and  it  would  serve  no 
purpose.  The  spring  of  1871  was  a  very 
dark  and  dismal  spring  to  me.  It  was  as 
though  a  part  —  the  best  part  —  of  myself 
had  been  taken  from  me.  To  go  on  living 
in  the  same  old  house,  where  everything 
spoke  to  me  of  her,  where  every  nook  and 
corner  had  its  association  with  her,  where 
every  chair  and  table  recalled  her  to  me, 
yet  not  to  hear  her  voice,  nor  see  her  face, 
nor  feel  her  presence  any  more,  and  to 
realize  that  she  had  gone  from  me  forever 
—  I  need  not  tell  you  how  hard  it  was,  nor 
how  my  heart  ached,  nor  how  utterly  lone- 
some and  desolate  I  felt.  I  need  not  tell 

43 


44  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

you  how  big  and  bleak  and  empty  the  old 
house  seemed. 

Sometimes,  though,  I  could  not  believe 
that  it  was  really  true,  that  she  had  really 
died.  It  was  too  dreadful.  I  could  not 
help  thinking  that  it  must  be  some  mistake, 
some  hideous  delusion.  I  would  start  from 
my  sleep  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  and 
feel  sure  that  it  must  have  been  a  bad 
dream,  that  she  must  have  come  back,  that 
she  was  even  now  in  bed  in  her  room. 
Then,  full  of  hope,  I  would  get  up  and  go 
to  see.  All  my  pain  was  suddenly  and 
cruelly  renewed  when  I  found  her  bed  cold 
and  empty.  I  would  throw  myself  upon  it, 
and  bury  my  face  in  the  coverlet,  and  aban- 
don myself  to  a  passionate  outburst  of  tears 
and  sobs,  calling  aloud  for  her :  "  Grand'- 
mere,  grand' mere,  O  ma  grand' mere  ch'erie!  " 
I  almost  expected  that  she  would  hear  me, 
and  be  moved  to  pity  for  me,  and  come 
back. 

One  night,  when  I  was  lying  thus  upon 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  45 

her  bed,  in  the  dark,  and  calling  for  her,  I 
felt  all  at  once  the  clutch  of  a  strong  hand 
upon  my  shoulder.  It  terrified  me  unspeak- 
ably. My  heart  gave  a  great  jump,  and 
stopped  its  beating.  My  limbs  trembled, 
and  a  cold  sweat  broke  out  all  over  my 
body.  I  could  not  see  six  inches  before 
my  face.  Who,  or  rather  what,  could  my 
invisible  captor  be  ?  Some  grim  and  fear- 
ful monster  of  the  darkness?  A  giant  —  a 
vampire  —  an  ogre  —  or,  at  the  very  least, 
a  burglar!  All  this  flashed  through  my 
mind  in  a  fraction  of  a  second.  Then  I 
heard  the  voice  of  my  Uncle  Peter :  "  What 
do  you  mean,  you  young  beggar,  by  raising 
such  a  hullaballoo  at  this  hour  of  the  night, 
and  waking  people  up  ?  Get  off  to  your 
bed  now,  and  in  the  morning  I'll  talk  to 
you."  And  though  I  suspected  that  "  I'll 
talk  to  you  "  signified  "  I'll  give  you  a  good 
sound  thrashing,"  I  could  have  hugged  my 
Uncle  Peter,  so  great  was  my  relief  to  find 
that  it  was  he,  and  no  one  worse. 


46  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

Surely  enough,  next  morning  after  break- 
fast, he  led  me  to  his  room,  and  there  he  ad- 
ministered to  me  one  of  the  most  thorough 
and  energetic  thrashings  I  ever  received 
from  him.  But  now  I  had  nobody  to  pet 
me  and  make  much  of  me  after  it ;  and  all 
that  day  I  felt  the  awful  friendlessness  of 
my  position  more  keenly  than  I  had  ever 
felt  it  before. 

"  I  have  but  one  friend  in  the  whole  world," 
I  thought,  "  and  he  is  so  far,  so  far  away. 
If  I  could  only  somehow  get  across  the 
ocean,  to  France,  to  Paris,  to  his  house,  and 
live  with  him  !  He  would  be  so  good  to 
me,  and  I  should  be  so  happy ! "  And  I 
looked  up  at  his  sword  hanging  upon  my 
wall,  and  longed  for  the  hour  when  I  should 
touch  the  hand  that  had  once  wielded  it. 

I  must  not  forget  to  tell  you  here  of  a 
little  correspondence  that  I  had  with  this 
distant  friend  of  mine.  A  day  or  two  after 
the  funeral  I  approached  my  Uncle  Peter, 
,  summoning  all  my  courage,  inquired, 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  47 

"  Are  you  going  to  write  to  Uncle  Flori- 
mond,  and  let  him  know  ?  " 

"What?"  he  asked,  as  if  he  had  not 
heard,  though  I  had  spoken  quite  distinctly. 
That  was  one  of  his  disagreeable,  discon- 
certing ways  —  to  make  you  repeat  what- 
ever you  had  to  say.  It  always  put  me  out 
of  countenance,  and  made  me  feel  foolish 
and  embarrassed. 

"  I  wanted  to  know  whether  you  were 
going  to  write  and  tell  Uncle  Florimond,"  I 
explained  with  a  quavering  voice. 

By  way  of  retort,  he  half-shut  his  eyes, 
and  gave  me  a  queer,  quizzical  glance, 
which  seemed  to  be  partly  a  sneer,  and 
partly  a  threat.  He  kept  it  up  for  a  minute 
or  two,  and  then  he  turned  his  back  upon 
me,  and  went  off  whistling.  This  I  took  to 
be  as  good  as  "  No  "  to  my  question.  "  Yet," 
I  reflected,  "  somebody  ought  to  write  and 
tell  him.  It  is  only  fair  to  let  him  know." 
And  I  determined  that  I  would  do  so  my- 
self; and  I  did.  I  wrote  him  a  letter;  and 


48  I    MAKE   A    FRIEND. 

then  I  rewrote  it;  and  then  I  copied  it; 
an<4  then  I  copied  it  again ;  and  at  last  I 
dropped  my  final  copy  into  the  post-box. 

About  five  weeks  later  I  got  an  answer 
from  him.  In  a  few  simple  sentences  he 
expressed  his  great  sorrow ;  and  then  he 
went  on:  "And,  now,  my  dear  little  nephew, 
by  this  mutual  loss  thou  and  I  are  brought 
closer  together;  and  by  a  more  tender 
mutual  affection  we  must  try  to  comfort  and 
console  each  other.  For  my  part,  I  open  to 
thee  that  place  in  my  heart  left  vacant  by 
the  death  of  my  sainted  sister ;  and  I  dare 
to  hope  that  thou  wilt  transfer  to  me  some- 
thing of  thy  love  for  her.  I  attend  with 
impatience  the  day  of  our  meeting,  which,  I 
tell  myself,  if  the  Lord  spares  our  lives, 
must  arrive  as  soon  as  thou  art  big  enough 
to  leave  thy  home  and  come  to  me  in 
France.  Meanwhile,  may  the  good  God 
keep  and  bless  thee,  shall  be  the  constant 
prayer  of  thy  Uncle  de  la  Bourbonnaye." 

This    letter    touched     me    very    deeply. 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  49 

After  reading  it  I  came  nearer  to  feeling 
really  happy  than  I  had  come  at  any  time 
before  since  she  died. 

I  must  hasten  over  the  next  year.  Of 
course,  as  the  weeks  and  months  slipped 
away,  I  gradually  got  more  or  less  used  to 
the  new  state  of  things,  and  the  first  sharp 
edge  of  my  grief  was  dulled.  The  hardest 
hours  of  my  day  were  those  spent  at  table 
with  Uncle  Peter  —  alone  with  him,  in  a 
silence  broken  only  by  the  clinking  of  our 
knives  and  forks.  These  were  very  hard, 
trying  hours  indeed.  The  rest  of  my  time 
I  passed  out  of  doors,  in  the  company  of 
Sam  Budd,  our  gardener's  son,  and  the 
other  village  boys.  What  between  swim- 
ming, fishing,  and  running  the  streets  with 
them,  I  contrived  to  amuse  myself  after  a 
fashion.  Yet,  for  all  that,  the  year  I  speak 
of  was  a  forlorn,  miserable  year  for  me ;  I 
was  far  from  being  either  happy  or  con- 
tented. My  first  violent  anguish  had  simply 
given  place  to  a  vague,  continuous  sense  of 


5O  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

dissatisfaction  and  unrest,  like  a  hunger,  a 
craving,  for  something  I  could  not  name. 
That  something  was  really  —  love:  though 
I  was  not  wise  enough  to  know  as  much  at 
the  time.  A  child's  heart  —  and,  for  that 
matter,  a  grown-up  man's  —  craves  affection 
as  naturally  as  his  stomach  craves  food ;  I 
did  not  have  it ;  and  that  was  why  my  heart 
ached  and  was  sick.  I  wondered  and  won- 
dered whether  my  present  mode  of  life  was 
going  to  last  forever ;  I  longed  and  longed 
for  change.  Somehow  to  escape,  and  get 
across  the  ocean  to  my  Uncle  Florimond, 
was  my  constant  wish ;  but  I  saw  no  means 
of  realizing  it.  Once  in  a  while  I  would 
think,  "  Suppose  I  write  to  him  and  tell  him 
how  wretched  I  am,  and  ask  him  to  send 
for  me  ? "  But  then  a  feeling  of  shame  and 
delicacy  restrained  me. 

Another  thing  that  you  will  easily  see 
about  this  year,  is  that  it  must  have  been  a 
very  unprofitable  one  for  me  from  the  point 
of  view  of  morals.  My  education  was  sus- 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  51 

pended ;  no  more  study,  no  more  lessons. 
Uncle  Peter  never  spoke  of  sending  me  to 
school ;  and  I  was  too  young  and  ignorant 
to  desire  to  go  of  my  own  accord.  Then, 
too,  I  was  without  any  sort  of  refining  or 
softening  influence  at  home ;  Julia,  our 
cook,  being  my  single  friend  there,  and  my 
uncle's  treatment  of  me  serving  only  to  sour 
and  harden  me.  If,  therefore,  at  the  end  of 
the  year  in  question  I  was  by  no  manner 
of  means  so  nice  a  boy  as  I  had  been  at 
the  beginning  of  it,  surely  there  was  little 
cause  for  astonishment.  Indeed,  I  imagine 
the  only  thing  that  kept  me  from  growing 
altogether  rough  and  wild  and  boisterous, 
was  my  thought  of  Uncle  Florimond,  and 
my  ambition  to  be  the  kind  of  lad  that  I 
believed  he  would  like  to  have  me. 

And  now  I  come  to  an  adventure  which, 
as  it  proved,  marked  the  point  of  a  new 
departure  in  my  affairs. 

It  was  early  in  April,  1872.  There  had 
been  a  general  thaw,  followed  by  several 


52  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

days  of  heavy  rain ;  and  the  result  was,  of 
course,  a  freshet.  Our  little  river,  the 
Yantic,  had  swollen  to  three  —  in  some 
places  even  to  four  —  times  its  ordinary 
width ;  and  its  usually  placid  current  had 
acquired  a  tremendous  strength  and  speed. 
This  transformation  was  the  subject  of  end- 
less interest  to  us  boys ;  and  every  day  we 
used  to  go  and  stand  upon  the  bank,  and 
watch  the  broad  and  turbulent  rush  of  water 
with  mingled  wonder,  terror  and  delight. 
It  was  like  seeing  an  old  friend,  whom  we 
had  hitherto  regarded  as  a  quite  harmless  and 
rather  namby-pamby  sort  of  chap,  and  been 
fearlessly  familiar  with,  suddenly  display  the 
power  and  prowess  of  a  giant,  and  brandish 
his  fists  at  us,  crying,  "  Come  near  me  at 
your  peril !  "  Our  emotions  sought  utter- 
ance in  such  ejaculations  as  "  My  !  " 
"  Whew!  "  and  "  Jimminy!  "  and  Sam  Budd 
was  always  tempting  me  with, "  Say,  Gregory, 
stump  ye  to  go  in,"  which  was  very  aggra- 
vating. I  hated  to  have  him  dare  me. 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  53 

Well,  one  afternoon  —  I  think  it  was  on 
the  third  day  of  the  freshet  —  when  Sam 
and  I  made  our  customary  pilgrimage  down 
through  Captain  Josh  Abingdon's  garden 
to  the  water's  edge,  fancy  our  surprise  to 
behold  a  man  standing  there  and  fishing. 
Fishing  in  that  torrent !  It  was  too  absurd 
for  anything;  and  instantly  all  our  wonder 
transferred  itself  from  the  stream  to  the 
fisherman,  at  whom  we  stared  with  eyes  and 
mouths  wide  open,  in  an  exceedingly  curious 
and  ill-bred  manner.  He  didn't  notice  us 
at  first ;  and  when  he  did,  he  didn't  seem  to 
mind  our  rudeness  the  least  bit.  He  just 
looked  up  for  a  minute,  and  calmly  inspected 
us ;  and  then  he  gave  each  of  us  a  solemn, 
deliberate  wink,  and  returned  his  attention 
to  his  pole,  which,  by  the  way,  was  an  elabo- 
rate and  costly  one,  jointed  and  trimmed 
with  metal.  He  was  a  funny-looking  man; 
short  and  stout,  with  a  broad,  flat,  good- 
natured  face,  a  thick  nose,  a  large  mouth, 
and  hair  as  black  and  curling  as  a  negro's. 


54  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

He  wore  a  fine  suit  of  clothes  of  the  style 
that  we  boys  should  have  called  cityfied ; 
and  across  his  waistcoat  stretched  a  massive 
golden  watch-chain,  from  which  dangled  a 
large  golden  locket  set  with  precious  stones. 

Presently  this  strange  individual  drew  in 
his  line  to  examine  his  bait ;  and  then,  hav- 
ing satisfied  himself  as  to  its  condition,  he 
attempted  to  make  a  throw.  But  he  threw 
too  hard.  His  pole  slipped  from  his  grasp, 
flew  through  the  air,  fell  far  out  into  the 
water,  and  next  moment  started  off  down 
stream  at  the  rate  of  a  train  of  steam-cars. 
This  was  a  sad  mishap.  The  stranger's 
face  expressed  extreme  dismay,  and  Sam 
and  I  felt  sorry  for  him  from  the  bottom  of 
our  hearts.  It  was  really  a  great  pity  that 
such  a  handsome  pole  should  be  lost  in  such 
a  needless  fashion. 

But  stay  !  All  at  once  the  pole's  progress 
down  stream  ceased.  It  had  got  caught  by 
an  eddy,  which  was  sweeping  it  rapidly 
inward  and  upward  toward  the  very  spot 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  55 

upon  the  shore  where  we  stood.  Would  it 
reach  land  safely,  and  be  recovered  ?  We 
waited,  watching,  in  breathless  suspense. 
Nearer  it  came  —  nearer  —  nearer  !  Our 
hopes  were  mounting  very  high  indeed.  A 
smile  lighted  the  fisherman's  broad  face. 
The  pole  had  now  approached  within  twenty 
feet  of  the  bank.  Ten  seconds  more,  and 
surely  —  But  again,  stay !  Twenty  feet  from 
the  shore  the  waters  formed  a  whirlpool. 
In  this  whirlpool  for  an  instant  the  pole  re- 
mained motionless.  Then,  after  a  few  jerky 
movements  to  right  and  left,  instead  of  con- 
tinuing its  journey  toward  the  shore,  it 
began  spinning  round  and  round  in  the  cir- 
cling current.  At  any  minute  it  might 
break  loose  and  resume  its  course  down 
stream ;  but  for  the  present  there  it  was, 
halting  within  a  few  yards  of  us  —  so  near, 
and  yet  so  far. 

Up  to  this  point  we  had  all  kept  silence. 
But  now  the  fisherman  broke  it  with  a  loud, 
gasping  sigh.  Next  thing  I  heard  was  Sam 


56  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

Budd's  voice,  pitched  in  a  mocking,  defiant 
key,  "  Say,  Gregory,  stump  ye  to  go  in."  I 
looked  at  Sam.  He  was  already  beginning 
to  undress. 

No;  under  the  circumstances — with  that 
man  as  a  witness  —  I  could  not  refuse  the 
challenge.  My  reputation,  my  character,  was 
at  stake.  I  knew  that  the  water  would  be  as 
cold  as  ice ",  I  knew  that  the  force  of  its  cur- 
rent involved  danger  to  a  swimmer  of  a  sort 
not  to  be  laughed  at.  Yet  my  pride  had  been 
touched,  my  vanity  had  been  aroused.  I 
could  not  allow  Sam  Budd  to  "  stump  "  me 
with  impunity,  and  then  outdo  me.  "  You 
do,  do  you  ?  "  I  retorted.  "  Well,  come 
on."  And  stripping  off  my  clothes  in  a 
twinkling,  I  plunged  into  the  flood,  Sam 
following  close  at  my  heels. 

As  cold  as  ice !  Why,  ice  was  nowhere, 
compared  to  the  Yantic  River  in  that  first 
week  of  April.  They  say  extremes  meet. 
Well,  the  water  was  so  cold  that  it  seemed 
actually  to  scald  my  skin,  as  if  it  had  been 


SUCCESS  I 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  59 

boiling  hot.  But  never  mind.  The  first 
shock  over,  I  gritted  my  teeth  to  keep  them 
from  chattering,  and  struck  boldly  out  for 
the  whirlpool,  where  the  precious  rod  was 
still  spinning  round  and  round.  Of  course, 
in  order  to  save  myself  from  being  swept 
down  below  it,  I  had  to  aim  diagonally  at  a 
point  far  above  it. 

The  details  of  my  struggle  I  need  not 
give.  Indeed,  I  don't  believe  I  could  give 
them,  even  if  it  were  desirable  that  I  should. 
My  memory  of  the  time  I  spent  in  the  water 
is  exceedingly  confused  and  dim.  Intense 
cold  ;  desperately  hard  work  with  arms  and 
legs ;  frantic  efforts  to  get  my  breath ;  a 
fierce  determination  to  be  the  first  to  reach 
that  pole  no  matter  at  what  hazard ;  a  sense 
of  immense  relief  and  triumph  when,  sud- 
denly, I  realized  that  success  had  crowned 
my  labors  —  when  I  felt  the  pole  actually  in 
my  hands ;  then  a  fight  to  regain  the  shore ; 
and  finally,  again,  success ! 

Yes,  there  I  stood  upon  the  dry  land,  safe 


6O  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

and  sound,  though  panting  and  shivering 
from  exhaustion  and  cold.  I  was  also  rather 
dazed  and  bewildered  ;  yet  I  still  had  enough 
of  my  wits  about  me  to  go  up  to  the  fisher- 
man, and  say  politely,  "  Here,  sir,  is  your 
pole."  He  cried  in  response  —  and  I  no- 
ticed that  he  pronounced  the  English 
language  in  a  very  peculiar  way — "My 
kracious !  You  was  a  brave  boy,  Bubby. 
Hurry  up;  dress;  you  catch  your  death  of 
cold  standing  still  there,  mitout  no  clodes  on 
you,  like  dot.  My  koodness !  a  boy  like  you 
was  worth  a  tousand  dollars." 

Suddenly  it  occurred  to  me  to  wonder 
what  had  become  of  Sam.  I  had  not  once 
thought  of  him  since  my  plunge  into  the 
water.  I  suppose  the  reason  for  this  forget- 
fulness  was  that  my  entire  mind,  as  well  as 
my  entire  body,  had  been  bent  upon  the 
work  I  had  in  hand.  But  now,  as  I  say,  it 
suddenly  occurred  to  me  to  wonder  what  had 
become  of  him  ;  and  a  sickening  fear  lest  he 
might  have  got  drowned  made  my  heart  quail. 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  6l 

"O,  sir!"  I  demanded,  "Sam  —  the  other 
boy  —  where  is  he  ?  Has  anything  hap- 
pened to  him  ?  Did  he  —  he  didn't  —  he 
didn't  get  drowned  ?  " 

"  Drownded  ?  "  repeated  the  fisherman. 
"Well,  you  can  bet  he  didn't.  He's  all 
right.  There  he  is  —  under  dot  tree  over 
there." 

He  pointed  toward  an  apple-tree,  beneath 
which  I  descried  Sam  Budd,  already  nearly 
dressed.  As  Sam's  eyes  met  mine,  a  very 
sheepish  look  crept  over  his  face,  and  he 
called  out, "  Oh  !  I  gave  up  long  ago."  Well, 
you  may  just  guess  how  proud  and  victo- 
rious I  felt  to  hear  this  admission  from  my 
rival's  lips. 

The  fisherman  now  turned  his  attention 
to  straightening  out  his  tackle,  which  had 
got  into  a  sad  mess  during  its  bath,  while 
I  set  to  putting  on  my  things.  Pretty  soon 
he  drew  near  to  where  I  stood,  and,  survey- 
ing me  with  a  curious  glance,  "  Well,  Bubby, 
how  you  feel  ?  "  he  asked. 


62  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

"  Oh  !  I  feel  all  right,  thank  you,  sir;  only 
a  little  cold,"  I  answered. 

"  Well,  Bubby,  you  was  a  fine  boy,"  he 
went  on.  "  Well,  how  old  was  you  ?  " 

"  I'm  twelve,  going  on  thirteen." 

"  My  kracious  !  Is  dot  all  ?  Why,  you 
wasn't  much  older  as  a  baby ;  and  yet  so 
tall  and  strong  already.  Well,  Bubby,  what's 
your  name  ?  " 

"  Gregory  Brace." 

"  Krekory  Prace,  hey  ?  Well,  dot's  a  fine 
name.  Well,  you  live  here  in  Nawvich,  I 
suppose  —  yes  ? " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Maybe  your  papa  was  in  business  here  ?  " 

"  No,  sir;  my  father  is  dead." 

"  Oh !  is  dot  so  ?  Well,  dot's  too  bad. 
And  so  you  was  a  half-orphan,  yes  ?  " 

"  No,  sir ;  my  mother  is  dead,  too." 

"  You  don't  say  so !  Well,  my  kracious  ! 
Well,  den  you  was  a  whole  orphan,  ain't 
you  ?  Well,  who  you  live  with  ?  " 

"  I  live  with  my  uncle,  sir  —  Judge  Brace." 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  63 

"  Oh !  so  your  uncle  was  a  judge.  Well, 
dot's  grand.  Well,  you  go  to  school,  I 
suppose,  hey  ? " 

"  No,  sir ;  I  don't  go  to  school." 

"  You  don't  go  to  school  ?  Oh !  then, 
maybe  you  was  in  business  already,  yes." 

"  O,  no,  sir !  I'm  not  in  business." 

"You  don't  go  to  school,  and  you  wasn't 
in  business ;  well,  what  you  do  mit  yourself 
all  day  long,  hey  ?  " 

"I  play." 

"  You  play !  Well,  then  you  was  a  sort  of 
a  gentleman  of  leisure,  ain't  you?  Well, 
dot  must  be  pretty  good  fun  —  to  play 
all  day.  Well,  Bubby,  you  ever  go  to  New 
York?" 

"  No,  sir ;  I've  never  been  in  New  York. 
Do  you  live  in  New  York,  sir  ? " 

"  Yes,  Bubby,  I  live  in  New  York  when 
I'm  at  home.  But  I'm  shenerally  on  the 
road,  like  I  was  to-day.  I'm  what  you  call 
a  trummer ;  a  salesman  for  Krauskopf,  Sol- 
linger  &  Co.,  voolens.  Here's  my  card." 


64  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

He  handed  me  a  large  pasteboard  card,  of 
which  the  following  is  a  copy :  — 


SOLOMON    D.  MARX. 

NO. FRANKLIN    ST. 

Representing 

KRAUSKOPF,  SOLLINGKR  &  Co.,  NEW  YORK. 

WOOLENS. 


"  Yes,"  he  went  on,  "  dot's  my  name,  and 
dot's  my  address.  And  when  you  come  to 
New  York  you  call  on  me  there,  and  I'll 
treat  you  like  a  buyer.  I'll  show  you  around 
our  establishment,  and  I'll  give  you  a  dinner 
by  a  restaurant,  and  I'll  take  you  to  the 
theayter,  and  then,  if  you  want  it,  I'll  get 
you  a  chop." 

"A  chop?"  I  queried.  "What  is  a 
chop  ?  " 

"  What  is  a  chop !     Why,  if  you  want  to 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  65 

go  into  business,  you  got  to  get  a  chop,  ain't 
you  ?  A  chop  was  an  embloyment ;  and 
then  there  was  chop-lots  also."  At  this  I 
understood  that  he  meant  a  job.  "  Yes, 
Bubby,  a  fine  boy  like  you  hadn't  oughter 
be  doing  nodings  all  day  long.  You'd 
oughter  go  into  business,  and  get  rich. 
You're  smart  enough,  and  you  got  enerchy. 
I  was  in  business  already  when  I  was  ten 
years  old,  and  I  ain't  no  smarter  as  you, 
and  I  ain't  got  no  more  enerchy.  Yes, 
Bubby,  you  take  my  advice :  come  down  to 
New  York,  and  I  get  you  a  chop,  and  you 
make  your  fortune,  no  mistake  about  it. 
And  now,  Bubby,  I  want  to  give  you  a  little 
present  to  remember  me  by." 

He  drew  a  great  fat  roll  of  money  from 
his  waistcoat  pocket,  and  offered  me  a  two- 
dollar  bill. 

"  O,  no !  I  thank  you,  sir,"  I  hastened  to 
say.  "  I  don't  want  any  money." 

"  O,  well !  this  ain't  no  money  to  speak 
of,  Bubby ;  only  a  two-tollar  pill.  You  just 


66  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

take  it,  and  buy  yourself  a  little  keepsake. 
It  von't  hurt  you." 

"  You're  very  kind,  sir ;  but  I  really  can't 
take  it,  thank  you."  And  it  flashed  through 
my  mind :  "  What  would  Uncle  Florimond 
think  of  me,  if  I  should  accept  his  money  ?  " 

"Well,  dot's  too  bad.  I  really  like  to 
make  you  a  little  present,  Bubby.  But  if 
you  was  too  proud,  what  you  say  if  I  give  it 
to  the  other  boy,  hey  ?  " 

"Oh!  to  Sam  —  yes,  I  think  that  would 
be  a  very  good  idea,"  I  replied. 

So  he  called  Sam  —  Sent  was  the  way  he 
pronounced  it — and  gave  him  the  two-dol- 
lar bill,  which  Sam  received  without  the 
faintest  show  of  compunction. 

"  Well,  I  got  to  go  now,"  the  fisherman 
said,  holding  out  his  hand.  "  Well,  good-by, 
Bubby ;  and  don't  forget,  when  you  come  to 
New  York,  to  give  me  a  call.  Well,  so- 
long." 

Sam  and  I  watched  him  till  he  got  out  of 
sight.  Then  we  too  started  for  home. 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  67 

At  the  time,  my  talk  with  Mr.  Solomon  D. 
Marx  did  not  make  any  especial  impression 
on  me  ;  but  a  few  days  later  it  came  back 
to  me,  the  subject  of  serious  meditation. 
The  circumstances  were  as  follows  :  — 

We  had  just  got  through  our  supper,  and 
Uncle  Peter  had  gone  to  his  room,  when  all 
at  once  I  heard  his  door  open,  and  his  voice, 
loud  and  sharp,  call,  "  Gregory  !  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  I  answered,  my  heart  in  a 
flutter ;  and  to  myself  I  thought,  "  O,  dear  I 
what  can  be  the  matter  now  ?  " 

"  Come  here,  quick  !  "  he  ordered. 

I  entered  his  room,  and  saw  him  standing 
near  his  table,  with  a  cigar-box  in  his  hand. 

"  You  young  rascal,"  he  began ;  "  so  you 
have  been  stealing  my  cigars  !  " 

This  charge  of  theft  was  so  unexpected, 
so  insulting,  so  untrue,  that,  if  he  had  struck 
me  a  blow  between  the  eyes,  it  could  not 
have  taken  me  more  aback.  The  blood 
rushed  to  my  face ;  my  whole  frame  grew 
rigid,  as  if  I  had  been  petrified.  I  tried  to 


68  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

speak ;  but  my  presence  of  mind  had  de- 
serted me ;  I  could  not  think  of  a  single 
word. 

"  Well  ?  "  he  questioned.     "  Well  ?  " 

"I  —  I  —  I"  —  I  stammered.  Scared  out 
of  my  wits,  I  could  get  no  further. 

"  Well,  have  you  nothing  to  say  for  your- 
self?" 

"  I  —  I  did  —  I  didn't  —  do  it,"  I  gasped. 
"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean." 

"What!"  he  thundered.  "You  dare  to 
lie  to  me  about  it !  You  dare  to  steal  from 
me,  and  then  lie  to  my  face !  You  insuf- 
ferable beggar !  I'll  teach  you  a  lesson." 
And,  putting  out  his  hand,  he  took  his 
rattan  cane  from  the  peg  it  hung  by  on  the 
wall. 

"  Oh !  really  and  truly,  Uncle  Peter,"  I 
protested,  "  I  never  stole  a  thing  in  all  my 
life.  I  never  saw  your  cigars.  I  didn't  even 
know  you  had  any.  Oh!  you — you're  not 
going  to  whip  me,  when  I  didn't  do  it  ? " 

"  Why,  what  a  barefaced  little  liar  it  is ! 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  69 

Egad !  you  do  it  beautifully.  I  wouldn't 
have  given  you  credit  for  so  much  clever- 
ness." He  said  this  in  a  sarcastic  voice, 
and  with  a  mocking  smile.  Then  he 
frowned,  and  his  voice  changed.  "  Come 
here,"  he  snarled,  his  fingers  tightening 
upon  the  handle  of  his  cane. 

A  great  wave  of  anger  swept  over  me, 
and  brought  me  a  momentary  flush  of 
courage.  "No,  sir;  I  won't,"  I  answered, 
my  whole  body  in  a  tremor. 

Uncle  Peter  started.  I  had  never  before 
dared  to  defy  him.  He  did  not  know  what 
to  make  of  my  doing  so  now.  He  turned 
pale.  He  bit  his  lip.  His  eyes  burned 
with  a  peculiarly  ugly  light.  So  he  stood, 
glaring  at  me,  for  a  moment.  Then,  "  You 
—  won't,"  he  repeated,  very  low,  and  paus- 
ing between  the  words.  "  Why,  what  kind 
of  talk  is  this  I  hear?  Well,  well,  my  fine 
fellow,  you  amuse  me." 

I  was  standing  between  him  and  the  door. 
I  turned  now,  with  the  idea  of  escaping 


7O  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

from  the  room.  But  he  was  too  quick  for 
me.  I  had  only  just  got  my  hand  upon  the 
latch,  when  he  sprang  forward,  seized  me  by 
the  collar  of  my  jacket,  and,  with  one  strong 
pull,  landed  me  again  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor. 

"  There  !  "  he  cried.  "  Now  we'll  have  it 
out.  I  owe  you  four :  one  for  stealing  my 
cigars ;  one  for  lying  to  me  about  it ;  one 
for  telling  me  you  wouldn't ;  and  one  for 
trying  to  sneak  out  of  the  room.  Take  this, 
and  this,  and  this." 

With  that  he  set  his  rattan  cane  in 
motion  ;  nor  did  he  bring  it  to  a  stand-still 
until  I  felt  as  though  I  had  not  one  well 
spot  left  upon  my  skin. 

"  Now,  then,  be  off  with  you,"  he  growled ; 
and  I  found  myself  in  the  hall  outside  his 
door. 

I  dragged  my  aching  body  to  my  room, 
and  sat  down  at  my  window  in  the  dark. 
Never  before  had  I  experienced  such  a 
furious  sense  of  outrage.  Many  and  many 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  71 

a  time  I  had  been  whipped,  as  I  thought, 
unjustly;  but  this  time  he  had  added  insult 
to  injury;  he  had  accused  me  of  stealing 
and  of  lying;  and,  deaf  to  my  assertion  of 
my  innocence,  he  had  punished  me  accord- 
ingly. I  seriously  believe  that  I  did  not 
mind  the  whipping  in  itself  half  so  much 
as  I  minded  the  shameful  accusations  that 
he  had  brought  against  me.  "  How  long, 
how  long,"  I  groaned,  "  has  this  got  to  last  ? 
Shall  I  never  be  able  to  get  away  —  to  get  to 
France,  to  my  Uncle  Florimond  ?  If  I  only 
had  some  money  —  if  I  had  a  hundred  dol- 
lars —  then  all  my  troubles  would  be  over 
and  done  with.  Surely,  a  hundred  dollars 
would  be  enough  to  take  me  to  the  very 
door  of  his  house  in  Paris."  But  how  — 
how  to  obtain  such  an  enormous  sum  ?  And 
it  was  at  this  point  that  my  conversation 
with  Mr.  Solomon  D.  Marx  came  back  to 
me:  — 

"  Why,  go  to  New  York !     Go  into  busi- 
ness !      You'll    soon    earn    a    hundred    dol- 


72  I    MAKE    A    FRIEND. 

lars.  Mr.  Marx  said  he  would  get  you  a 
job.  Start  for  New  York  to-morrow." 

This  notion  took  immediate  and  entire 
possession  of  my  fancy,  and  I  remained 
awake  all  night,  building  glittering  air- 
castles  upon  it  as  a  foundation.  The  only 
doubt  that  vexed  me  was,  "  What  will  Uncle 
Peter  say  ?  Will  he  let  me  go  ? "  The 
idea  of  going  secretly,  or  without  his  con- 
sent, never  once  entered  my  head.  "  Well, 
to-morrow  morning,"  I  resolved,  "  I  will 
speak  with  him,  and  ask  his  permission. 
And  if  he  gives  it  to  me  —  hurrah  !  And 
if  he  doesn't  —  O,  dear  me,  dear  me  !  " 

To  cut  a  long  story  short,  when,  next 
morning,  I  did  speak  with  him,  and  ask  his 
permission,  he,  to  my  infinite  joy,  responded, 
"  Why,  go,  and  be  hanged  to  you.  Good 
riddance  to  bad  rubbish  !  " 

In  my  tin  savings  bank,  I  found,  I  had 
nine  dollars  and  sixty-three  cents.  With 
this  in  my  pocket;  with  the  sword  of  my 
Uncle  Florimond  as  the  principal  part  of 


I    MAKE    A    FRIEND.  73 

my  luggage  ;  and  with  a  heart  full  of  strange 
and  new  emotions,  of  fear  and  hope,  and 
gladness  and  regret,  I  embarked  that  even- 
ing upon  the  Sound  steamboat,  City  of  Law- 
rence, for  the  metropolis  where  I  have  ever 
since  had  my  home;  bade  good-by  to  my 
old  life,  and  set  sail  alone  upon  the  great, 
awful,  unknown  sea  of  the  future. 


CHAPTER   III. 

NEW   YORK. 

I  DID  not  feel  rich  enough  to  take  a  state- 
room on  the  City  of  Lawrence ;  that  would 
have  cost  a  dollar  extra ;  so  I  picked  out  a 
sofa  in  the  big  gilt  and  white  saloon,  and 
sitting  down  upon  it,  proceeded  to  make 
myself  as  comfortable  as  the  circumstances 
would  permit.  -  A  small  boy,  armed  with  a 
large  sword,  and  standing  guard  over  a  hand- 
satchel  and  a  square  package  done  up  in  a 
newspaper  —  which  last  contained  my  Uncle 
Florimond's  copy  of  Paul  et  Virginie  —  I 
dare  say  I  presented  a  curious  spectacle  to 
the  passers-by.  Indeed,  almost  everybody 
turned  to  look  at  me  ;  and  one  man,  with  an 
original  wit,  inquired,  "  Hello,  sword,  where 
you  going  with  that  boy  ?  But  my  mind 

74 


NEW    YORK.  75 

was  too  busy  with  other  and  weightier  mat- 
ters to  be  disturbed  about  mere  appearances. 
One  thought  in  particular  occupied  it :  I 
must  not  on  any  account  allow  myself  to 
fall  asleep  —  for  then  I  might  be  robbed. 
No ;  I  must  take  gr*eat  pains  to  keep  wide 
awake  all  night  long. 

For  the  first  hour  or  two  it  was  easy 
enough  to  make  this  resolution  good.  The 
undiscovered  country  awaiting  my  explora- 
tion, the  novelty  and  the  excitement  of  my 
position,  the  people  walking  back  and  forth, 
and  laughing  and  chattering,  the  noises  com- 
ing from  the  dock  outside,  and  from  every 
corner  of  the  steamboat  inside,  the  bright 
lights  of  the  cabin  lamps  —  all  combined  to 
put  -my  senses  on  the  alert,  and  to  banish 
sleep.  But  after  we  had  got  under  way,  and 
the  other  passengers  had  retired  to  their 
berths  or  staterooms,  and  most  of  the  lamps 
had  been  extinguished,  and  the  only  sound 
to  be  heard  was  the  muffled  throbbing  of 
the  engines,  then  tired  nature  asserted  her- 


76  NEW    YORK. 

self,  the  sandman  came,  my  eyelids  grew 
very  heavy,  I  began  to  nod.  Er-rub-dub- 
dub,  er-rub-dub-dub,  went  the  engines ;  er- 
rub-dubdub,  er-rub-er-rub-er-er-er-r-r  .  .  . 
Mercy  !  With  a  sudden  start  I  came  to  my- 
self. It  was  broad  day.  I  had  been  sleep- 
ing soundly  for  I  knew  not  how  many  hours. 

My  first  thought,  of  course,  was  for  my 
valuables.  Had  my  fears  been  realized? 
Had  I  been  robbed?  I  hastened  to  make 
an  investigation.  No !  My  money,  my 
sword,  my  satchel,  my  Paul  et  Virginie, 
remained  in  their  proper  places,  unmolested. 
Having  relieved  my  anxiety  on  this  head,  I 
got  up,  stretched  myself,  and  went  out  on 
deck. 

If  I  live  to  be  a  hundred,  I  don't  believe 
I  shall  ever  forget  my  first  breath  of  the  out- 
door air  on  that  red-letter  April  morning  — 
it  was  so  sweet,  so  pure,  so  fresh  and  keen 
and  stimulating.  It  sent  a  glow  of  new 
vitality  tingling  through  my  body.  I  just 
stood  still  and  drew  in  deep  inhalations  of 


NEW    YORK.  77 

it  with  delight.  It  was  like  drinking  a  rich, 
delicious  wine.  My  heart  warmed  and  mel- 
lowed. Hope  and  gladness  entered  into  it. 

It  must  have  been  very  early.  The  sun, 
a  huge  ball  of  gold,  floated  into  rosy  mists 
but  a  little  higher  than  the  horizon ;  and  a 
heavy  dew  bathed  the  deck  and  the  chairs 
and  the  rail.  We  were  speeding  along, 
almost,  it  seemed,  within  a  stone's  throw  of 
the  shore,  where  the  turf  was  beginning  to 
put  on  the  first  vivid  green  of  spring,  where 
the  leafless  trees  were  exquisitely  penciled 
against  the  gleaming  sky,  and  where,  from 
the  chimneys  of  the  houses,  the  smoke  of 
breakfast  fires  curled  upward.  Over  all 
there  lay  a  wondrous,  restful  stillness,  which 
the  pounding  of  our  paddle-wheels  upon  the 
water  served  only  to  accentuate,  and  which 
awoke  in  one's  breast  a  deep,  solemn,  and 
yet  joyous  sense  of  peace. 

I  staid  out  on  deck  from  that  moment 
until,  some  two  hours  later,  we  brought  up 
alongside  our  pier;  and  with  what  strange 


78  NEW    YORK. 

and  strong  emotions  I  watched  the  vast 
town  grow  from  a  mere  distant  reddish 
blur  to  the  grim,  frowning  mass  of  brick 
and  stone  it  really  is,  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
tell.  To  a  country-bred  lad  like  myself  it 
was  bound  to  be  a  stirring  and  memorable 
experience.  Looking  back  at  it  now,  I  can 
truly  say  that  it  was  one  of  the  most  stirring 
and  memorable  experiences  of  my  life. 

It  was  precisely  eight  o'clock,  as  a  gentle- 
man of  whom  I  inquired  the  hour  was  kind 
enough  to  inform  me,  when  I  stepped  off 
the  City  of  Lawrence  and  into  the  city  of 
New  York.  My  heart  was  bounding,  but 
my  poor  brain  was  bewildered.  The  hurly- 
burly  of  people,  the  fierce-looking  men  at 
the  entrance  of  the  dock,  who  shook  their 
fists  at  me,  and  shouted,*  "  Cadge,  cadge, 
want  a  cadge  ?  "  leaving  me  to  wonder  what 
a  cadge  wras,  the  roar  and  motion  of  the 
wagons  in  the  street,  everything,  everything 
interested,  excited,  yet  also  confused,  baffled, 
and  to  some  degree  frightened  me.  I  felt 


NEW    YORK.  79 

as  though  I  had  been  set  down  in  pandemo- 
nium ;  yet  I  was  not  sorry  to  be  there ;  I 
rather  liked  it. 

I  went  up  to  a  person  whom  I  took  to 
be  a  policeman,  for  he  wore  a  uniform  re- 
sembling that  worn  by  our  one  single  police- 
man in  Norwich  City ;  and,  exhibiting  the 
card  that  Mr.  Marx  had  given  me,  I  asked 
him  how  to  reach  the  street  and  house  indi- 
cated upon  it. 

He  eyed  me  with  unconcealed  amusement 
at  my  accoutrements,  and  answered,  "  Ye 
wahk  down  tin  blocks ;  thin  turrun  to  yer 
lift  four  blocks  ;  thin  down  wan  ;  thin  to  yer 
roight  chew  or  thray  doors;  and  there  ye 
are." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  I,  and  started  off, 
repeating  his  instructions  to  myself,  so  as 
not  to  forget  them. 

I  felt  very  hungry,  and  I  hoped  that  Mr. 
Marx  would  offer  me  some  breakfast ;  but  it 
did  not  occur  to  me  to  stop  at  an  eating- 
house,  and  breakfast  on  my  own  account, 


8O  NEW    YORK. 

until,  as  I  was  trudging  along,  I  presently 
caught  sight  of  a  sign-board  standing  on  the 
walk  in  front  of  a  shop,  which  advertised,  in 
big  conspicuous  white  letters  upon  a  black 
ground : — 


LADIES'  AND   GENTS'   DINING  PARLOR. 

BILL   OF    FARE. 

BEEFSTEAK ice. 

ROAST  BEEF          .        .        .        .  IDC. 

ROAST  PORK         .        .        .        .  ice. 

PORK  AND  BEANS         .        .        .  ice. 

FLAP  JACKS           .        .        .        .  xoc. 

FRIED  POTATOES  .        .         .         .  50. 

HOT  TEA  OR  COFFEE  ...  50. 

A  choice  Havana  Cigar  for  5  cents. 


Merely  to  read  the  names  of  these  good 
things  made  my  mouth  water.  The  prices 
seemed  reasonable.  I  walked  into  the  ladies' 


NEW    YORK.  8 1 

and  gents'  dining  parlor  —  which  was  rather 
shabby  and  dingy,  I  thought,  for  a  parlor  — 
and  asked  for  a  beefsteak  and  some  fried  pota- 
toes ;  a  burly,  villainous-looking  colored  man, 
in  his  shirt-sleeves,  having  demanded,  "  Wall, 
Boss,  wottle  you  have  ? "  His  shirt-sleeves 
were  not  immaculately  clean ;  neither  was 
the  dark  red  cloth  that  covered  my  table ; 
neither,  I  feared,  was  the  fork  he  gave  me 
to  eat  with.  To  make  sure,  I  picked  this 
last-named  object  up,  and  examined  it ;  where- 
upon the  waiter,  with  a  horrid  loud  laugh, 
cried,  "  Oh  !  yassah,  it's  sawlid,  sawlid  silvah, 
sah,"  which  made  me  feel  wretchedly  silly 
and  uncomfortable.  The  beefsteak  was 
pretty  tough,  and  not  especially  toothsome 
in  its  flavor;  the  potatoes  were  lukewarm 
and  greasy ;  the  bread  was  soggy,  the  butter 
rancid ;  the  waiter  took  up  a  position  close 
at  hand,  and  stared  at  me  with  his  wicked 
little  eyes  as  steadily  as  if  he  had  never  seen 
a  boy  before  :  so,  despite  my  hunger,  I  ate 
with  a  poor  appetite,  and  was  glad  enough 


82  NEW    YORK. 

when  by  and  by  I  left  the  ladies'  and  gents' 
dining  parlor  behind  me,  and  resumed  my 
journey  through  the  streets.  As  I  was 
crossing  the  threshold,  the  waiter  called 
after  me,  "  Say,  Johnny,  where  joo  hook  the 
sword  ? " 

Inquiring  my  way  of  each  new  policeman 
that  I  passed  —  for  I  distrusted  my  memory 
of  the  directions  I  had  received  from  the 

first — I  finally  reached  No. ,  Franklin 

Street  and  read  the  name  of  Krauskopf, 
Sollinger  &  Co.,  engraved  in  Old  English 
letters  upon  a  shining  metal  sign.  I  entered, 
and  with  a  trembling  heart  inquired  for  Mr. 
Marx.  Ten  seconds  later  I  stood  before 
him. 

"  Mr.  Marx,"  I  ventured,  in  rather  a  timid 
voice. 

He  was  seated  in  a  swivel-chair,  reading 
a  newspaper,  and  smoking  a  cigar.  At  the 
sound  of  his  name,  he  glanced  up,  and  looked 
at  me  for  a  moment  with  an  absent-minded 
and  indifferent  face,  showing  no  glimmer  of 


NEW    YORK.  83 

recognition.  But  then,  suddenly,  his  eyes 
lighted ;  he  sprang  from  his  chair,  started 
back,  and  cried:  — 

"  My  kracious !  was  dot  you,  Bubby  ? 
Was  dot  yourself  ?  Was  dot  —  well,  my 
koodness ! " 

"  Yes,  sir ;  Gregory  Brace,"  I  replied. 

"  Krekory  Prace  !  Yes,  dot's  a  fact.  No 
mistake  about  it.  It's  yourself,  sure.  But 
—  but,  koodness  kracious,  Bubby,  what  — 
how  —  why  —  when  —  where  —  where  you 
come  from  ?  When  you  leave  Nawvich  ? 
How  you  get  here  ?  What  you  —  well,  it's 
simply  wonderful." 

"  I  came  down  on  the  boat  last  night,"  I 
said. 

"  Oh !  you  came  down  on  de  boat  last 
night.  Well,  I  svear.  Well,  Bubby,  who 
came  mit  you  ?  " 

"  Nobody,  sir ;   I  came  alone." 

"  You  came  alone !  You  don't  say  so. 
Well,  did  your  mamma  —  excuse  me;  you 
ain't  got  no  mamma ;  I  forgot ;  it  was  your 


84  NEW    YORK. 

uncle  —  well,  did  your  uncle  know  you  was 
come  ? " 

"  Oh !  yes,  sir ;  he  knows  it ;  he  said  I 
might." 

"  He  said  you  might,  hey  ?  Well,  dot's 
fine.  Well,  Bubby,  what  you  come  for  ? 
To  make  a  little  visit,  hey,  and  go  around  a 
little,  and  see  the  town  ?  Well,  Bubby,  this 
was  a  big  surprise ;  it  was,  and  no  mistake. 
But  I'm  glad  to  see  you,  all  de  same.  Well, 
shake  hands." 

"  No,  sir,"  I  explained,  after  we  had  shaken 
hands,  "  I  didn't  come  for  a  visit.  I  came 
to  go  into  business.  You  said  you  would 
get  me  a  job,  and  I  have  come  for  that." 

"  Oh !  you  was  come  to  go  into  pusiness, 
was  you?  And  you  want  I  should  get  you 
a  chop?  Well,  if  I  ever!  Well,  you're  a 
great  feller,  Bubby ;  you  got  so  much  am- 
bition about  you.  Well,  dot's  all  right.  I 
get  you  the  chop,  don't  you  be  afraid.  We 
talk  about  dot  in  a  minute.  But  now,  ex- 
cuse me,  Bubby,  but  what  you  doing  mit 


NEW    YORK.  85 

the  sword  ?  Was  you  going  to  kill  some- 
body mit  it,  hey,  Bubby  ?  " 

"  O,  no,  sir !  it  —  it's  a  keepsake." 

"  Oh !  it  was  a  keepsake,  was  it,  Bubby  ? 
Well,  dot's  grand.  Well,  who  was  it  a  keep- 
sake of?  It's  a  handsome  sword,  Bubby, 
and  it  must  be  worth  quite  a  good  deal  of 
money.  If  dot's  chenu-wine  gold,  I  shouldn't 
wonder  if  it  was  worth  two  or  three  hundred 
dollars.  —  Oh!  by  the  way,  Bubby,  you  had 
your  breakfast  yet  already  ?  " 

"  Well,  yes,  sir ;  I've  had  a  sort  of  break- 
fast." 

"  A  sort  of  a  breakfast,  hey  ?  Well,  what 
sort  of  a  breakfast  was  it  ?  " 

I  gave  him  an  account  of  my  experience 
in  the  ladies'  and  gents'  dining  parlor.  He 
laughed  immoderately,  though  I  couldn't 
see  that  it  was  so  very  funny.  "  Well, 
Bubby,"  he  remarked,  "  dot  was  simply  im- 
mense. Dot  oughter  go  into  a  comic 
paper,  mit  a  picture  of  dot  big  nigger  star- 
ing at  you.  Well,  I  give  ten  dollars  to 


86  NEW    YORK. 

been  there,  and  heard  him  tell  you  dot  fork 
was  solid  silver.  Well,  dot  was  a.  pretty 
poor  sort  of  a  breakfast,  anyhow.  I  guess 
you  better  come  along  out  mit  me  now,  and 
we  get  anudder  sort  of  a  breakfast,  hey? 
You  just  wait  here  a  minute  while  I  go  put 
on  my  hat.  And  say,  Bubby,  I  guess  you 
better  give  me  dot  sword,  to  leaf  here  while 
we're  gone.  I  don't  believe  you'll  need  it. 
Give  me  dem  udder  things,  too,"  pointing  to 
my  satchel  and  my  book. 

He  went  away,  but  soon  came  back,  with 
his  hat  on ;  and,  taking  my  hand,  he  led  me 
out  into  the  street.  After  a  walk  of  a  few 
blocks,  we  turned  into  a  luxurious  little 
restaurant,  as  unlike  the  dining  parlor  as  a 
fine  lady  is  unlike  a  beggar  woman,  and  sat 
down  at  a  neat  round  table  covered  with  a 
snowy  cloth. 

"  Now,  Bubby,"  inquired  Mr.  Marx,  "  you 
got  any  preferences  ?  Or  will  you  give  me 
card  blanch  to  order  what  I  think  best  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  order  what  you  think  best." 


NEW    YORK.  87 

He  beckoned  a  waiter,  and  spoke  to  him 
at  some  length  in  a  foreign  language,  which, 
I  guessed,  was  German.  The  waiter  went 
off;  and  then,  addressing  me,  Mr.  Marx 
said,  "  Well,  now,  Bubby,  now  we're  settled 
down,  quiet  and  comfortable,  now  you  go 
ahead  and  tell  me  all  about  it." 

"  All  about  what,  sir  ?  "  queried  I. 

"Why,  all  about  yourself,  and  what  you 
leaf  your  home  for,  and  what  you  expect  to 
do  here  in  New  York,  and  every  dings  — 
the  whole  pusiness.  Well,  fire  away." 

"  Well,  sir,  I  — it —  it's  this  way,"  I  began. 

And  then,  as  well  as  I  could,  I  told  Mr. 
Marx  substantially  everything  that  I  have  as 
yet  told  you  in  this  story  —  about  my  grand- 
mother, my  Uncle  Florimond,  my  Uncle 
Peter,  and  all  the  rest.  Meanwhile  the 
waiter  had  brought  the  breakfast  —  such  an 
abundant,  delicious  breakfast!  such  juicy  mut- 
ton chops,  such  succulent  stewed  potatoes, 
such  bread,  such  butter,  such  coffee  !  —  and 
I  was  violating  the  primary  canons  of  good 


88  NEW    YORK. 

breeding  by  talking  with  my  mouth  full. 
Mr.  Marx  heard  me  through  with  every 
sign  of  interest  and  sympathy,  only  inter- 
rupting once,  to  ask,  "  Well,  what  I  ordered 
—  I  hope  it  gives  you  entire  satisfaction, 
hey  ?  "  and  when  I  had  done  :  — 

"  Well,  if  I  ever  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Well, 
dot  beats  de  record!  Well,  dot  Uncle  Peter 
was  simply  outracheous !  Well,  Bubby, 
you  done  just  right,  you  done  just  exactly 
right,  to  come  to  me.  The  only  thing  dot 
surprises  me  is  how  you  stood  it  so  long 
already.  Well,  dot  Uncle  Peter  of  yours, 
Bubby — well,  dot's  simply  unnecheral." 

He  paused  for  a  little,  and  appeared  to 
be  thinking.  By  and  by  he  went  on,  "  But 
your  grandma,  Bubby,  your  grandma  was 
elegant.  Yes,  Bubby,  your  grandma  was 
an  angel,  and  no  mistake  about  it.  She 
reminds  me,  Bubby,  she  reminds  me  of  my 
own  mamma.  Ach,  Krekory,  my  mamma 
was  so  loafly.  You  couldn't  hardly  believe 
it.  She  was  simply  magnificent.  Your 


NEW    YORK.  QI 

grandma  and  her,  they  might  have  been 
tervms.  Yes,  Krekory,  they  might  have 
been  tervin  sisters." 

Much  -to  my  surprise,  Mr.  Marx's  eyes 
rilled  with  tears,  and  there  was  a  frog  in  his 
voice.  "  I  can't  help  it,  Bubby,"  he  said. 
"  When  you  told  me  about  dot  grandma  of 
yours,  dot  made  me  feel  like  crying.  You 
see,"  he  added  in  an  apologetic  key,  "  I  got 
so  much  sentiment  about  me." 

He  was  silent  again  for  a  little,  and  then 
again  by  and  by  he  -went  on,  "  But  I  tell 
you  what,  Krekory,  it's  awful  lucky  dot  you 
came  down  to  New  York  just  exactly  when 
you  did.  Uddervise  —  if  you'd  come  to- 
morrow instead  of  to-day,  for  example  — 
you  wouldn't  have  found  me  no  more.  To- 
morrow morning  I  start  off  on  the  road  for 
a  six  weeks'  trip.  What  you  done,  hey,  if 
you  come  down  to  New  York  and  don't  find 
me,  hey,  Bubby?  Dot  would  been  fearful, 
hey  ?  Well,  now,  Krekory,  now  about  dot 
chop.  Well,  as  I  got  to  leaf  town  to-morrow 


92  NEW    YORK. 

morning,  I  ain't  got  the  time  to  find  you  a 
first-class  chop  before  I  go.  But  I  tell  you 
what  I  do.  I  take  you  up  and  introduce 
you  to  my  fader-in-law ;  and  you  stay  mit 
him  till  I  get  back  from  my  trip,  and  then 
I  find  you  the  best  chop  in  the  market,  don't 
you  be  afraid.  My  fader-in-law  was  a  chew- 
eler  of  the  name  of  Mr.  Finkelstein,  Mr. 
Gottlieb  Finkelstein.  He's  one  of  the  nicest 
gentlemen  you  want  to  know,  Bubby,  and 
he'll  treat  you  splendid.  As  soon  as  you 
get  through  mit  dot  breakfast,  I  take  you 
up  and  introduce  you  to  him." 

We  went  back  to  Mr.  Marx's  place  of 
business,  and  got  my  traps ;  and  then  we 
took  a  horse-car  up-town  to  Mr.  Finkelstein's, 
which  was  in  Third  Avenue  near  Forty- 
Seventh  Street.  Mr.  Marx  talked  to  me 
about  his  father-in-law  all  the  time. 

"  He's  got  more  wit  about  him  than  any 
man  of  my  acquaintance,"  he  said,  "  and 
he's  so  fond  of  music.  He's  a  vidower, 
you  know,  Bubby ;  and  I  married  his  only 


NEW    YORK.  93 

daughter,  of  the  name  of  Hedwig.  Me 
and  my  wife,  we  board ;  but  Mr.  Finkelstein, 
he  lives  up-stairs  over  his  store,  mit  an  old 
woman  of  the  name  of  Henrietta,  for  houze- 
keeper.  Well,  you'll  like  him  first-rate, 
Bubby,  you  see  if  you  don't ;  and  he'll  like 
you,  you  got  so  much  enerchy  about  you. 
My  kracious !  If  you  talk  about  eating,  he 
sets  one  of  the  grandest  tables  in  the  United 
States.  And  he's  so  fond  of  music,  Krek- 
ory  —  it's  simply  wonderful.  But  I  tell  you 
one  thing,  Bubby;  don't  you  never  let  him 
play  a  game  of  pinochle  mit  you,  or  else  you 
get  beat  all  holler.  He's  the  most  magnifi- 
cent pinochle  player  in  New  York  City;  he's 
simply  A-number-one.  .  .  .  Hello !  here 
we  are." 

We  left  the  horse-car,  and  found  ourselves 
in  front  of  a  small  jeweler's  shop,  which  we 
entered.  The  shop  was  empty,  but,  a  bell 
over  the  door  having  tinkled  in  announce- 
ment of  our  arrival,  there  entered  next 
moment  from  the  room  behind  it  an  old 


94  NEW    YORK. 

gentleman,  who,  as  soon  as  he  saw  Mr. 
Marx,  cried,  "  Hello,  Solly !  Is  dot  you  ? 
Vail,  I  declare  !  Vail,  how  goes  it  ?  " 

The  very  instant  I  first  set  eyes  on  him,  I 
thought  this  was  one  of  the  pleasantest- 
looking  old  gentlemen  I  had  ever  seen  in 
my  life ;  and  I  am  sure  you  would  have 
shared  my  opinion  if  you  had  seen  him,  too. 
He  was  quite  short  —  not  taller  than  five 
feet  two  or  three  at  the  utmost  —  and  as 
slender  as  a  young  girl ;  but  he  had  a  head 
and  face  that  were  really  beautiful.  His 
forehead  was  high,  and  his  hair,  white  as 
snow  and  soft  as  silk,  was  combed  straight 
back  from  it.  A  long  white  silky  beard 
swept  downward  over  his  breast,  half-way  to 
his  waist.  His  nose  was  a  perfect  aquiline, 
and  it  reminded  me  a  little  of  my  grand- 
mother's, only  it  was  longer  and  more 
pointed.  But  what  made  his  face  especially 
prepossessing  were  his  eyes ;  the  kindest, 
merriest  eyes  you  can  imagine ;  dark  blue  in 
color ;  shining  with  a  mild,  sweet  light  that 


NEW    YORK.  95 

won  your  heart  at  once,  yet  having  also  a 
humorous  twinkle  in  them.  Yes,  the  moment 
I  first  saw  Mr.  Finkelstein  I  took  a  liking  to 
him ;  a  liking  which  was  ere  a  great  while 
to  develop  into  one  of  the  strongest  affec- 
tions of  my  life. 

"  Vail,  how  goes  it  ? "  he  had  inquired  of 
Mr.  Marx;  and  Mr.  Marx  had  answered, 
"  First-class.  How's  yourself ?  " 

"  Oh !  vail,  pretty  fair,  tank  you.  I  cain't 
complain.  I  like  to  be  better,  but  I  might 
be  vorse.  Vail,  how's  Heddie  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  Hedwig,  she's  immense,  as  usual. 
Well,  how's  business  ?  " 

"  Oh !  don't  aisk  me.  Poor,  dirt-poor.  I 
ain't  made  no  sale  vort  mentioning  dese  two 
or  tree  days  already.  Only  vun  customer 
here  dis  morning  yet,  and  he  didn't  buy 
nodings.  Aifter  exaiming  five  tousand  tol- 
lars  vort  of  goots,  he  tried  to  Chew  me  down 
on  a  two  tollar  and  a  haif  plated  gold  vatch- 
chain.  Den  I  aisked  him  vedder  he  took 
my  establishment  for  a  back-handed  owction, 


96  NEW    YORK. 

and  he  got  maid  and  vent  avay.  Vail,  I 
cain't  help  it;  I  must  haif  my  shoke,  you 
know,  Solly.  Vail,  come  along  into  de  par- 
lor. Valk  in,  set  down,  make  yourself  to 
home." 

Without  stopping  his  talk,  he  led  us  into 
the  room  behind  the  shop,  which  was  very 
neatly  and  comfortably  furnished,  and  of- 
fered us  chairs.  "  Set  down,"  said  he,  "  and 
make  yourself  shust  as  much  to  home  as  if 
you  belonged  here.  I  hate  to  talk  to  a  man 
stainding  up.  Vail,  Solly,  I'm  real  glaid  to 
see  you;  but,  tell  me,  Solly,  was  dis  young 
shentleman  mit  you  a  sort  of  a  body-guard, 
hey?" 

"  A  body-guard  ? "  repeated  Mr.  Marx, 
"  how  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Why,  on  account  of  de  sword;  I  tought 
maybe  you  took  him  along  for  brodection." 

"  Ach,  my  kracious,  fader-in-law,  you're 
simply  killing,  you  got  so  much  wit  about 
you,"  cried  Mr.  Marx,  laughing. 

"  Vail,  I  must  haif  my  shoke,  dot's  a  faict," 


NEW    YORK.  97 

admitted  Mr.  Finkelstein.  "  Vail,  Solly,  you 
might  as  vail  make  us  acqvainted,  hey? " 

"  Well,  dot's  what  brought  me  up  here 
this  morning,  fader-in-law.  I  wanted  to  in- 
troduce him  to  you.  Well,  this  is  Mr. 
Krekory  Prace  —  Mr.  Finkelstein." 

"  Bleased  to  make  your  acqvaintance,  Mr. 
Prace ;  shake  hands,"  said  Mr.  Finkelstein. 
"  A»d  so  your  name  was  Kraikory,  was  it, 
Shonny  ?  I  used  to  know  a  Mr.  Kraikory 
kept  an  undertaker's  estaiblishment  on  Sixt 
Aivenue.  Maybe  he  was  a  relation  of 
yours,  hey  ?  " 

"No,  sir;  I  don't  think  so.  Gregory  is 
only  my  first  name,"  I  answered. 

"  Well,  now,  fader-in-law,"  struck  in  Mr. 
Marx,  "  you  remember  dot  boy  I  told  you 
about  up  in  Nawvich,  what  jumped  into  the 
water,  and  saved  me  my  fishing-pole  already, 
de  udder  day  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Solly,  I  remember.     Vail  ?  " 

"  Well,  fader-in-law,  this  wras  the  boy." 

"  What !     Go  Vay  !  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Fin- 


98  NEW    YORK. 

kelstein.  "  You  don't  mean  it !  Vail,  if  I 
aifer !  Vail,  Shonny,  let  me  look  at  you." 
He  looked  at  me  with  all  his  eyes,  swaying 
his  head  slowly  from  side  to  side  as  he  did 
so.  "  Vail,  I  wouldn't  haif  believed  it, 
aictually." 

"  It's  a  fact,  all  de  same ;  no  mistake 
about  it,"  attested  Mr.  Marx.  "  And  now 
he's  come  down  to  New  York,  looking  for 
a  chop." 

"  A  shop,  hey  ?  Vail,  what  kind  of  a  shop 
does  he  vant,  Solly  ?  I  should  tink  a  shop 
by  de  vater-vorks  vould  be  about  his  ticket, 
hey?" 

"  Oh  !  no  shoking.  Pusiness  is  pusiness, 
fader-in-law,"  Mr.  Marx  protested.  "  Well, 
seriously,  I  guess  he  ain't  particular  what 
kind  of  a  chop,  so  long  as  it's  steady  and 
has  prospects.  He's  got  so  much  enerchy 
and  ambition  about  him,  I  guesss  he'll  suc- 
ceed in  'most  any  kind  of  a  chop.  But  first 
I  guess  you  better  let  him  tell  you  de  rea- 
sons he  leaf  his  home,  and  den  you  can  give 


NEW    YORK.  99 

him  your  advice.  Go  ahead,  Bubby,  and 
tell  Mr.  Finkelstein  what  you  told  me  down 
by  the  restaurant." 

"  Yes,  go  ahead,  Shonny,"  Mr.  Finkel- 
stein added ;  and  so  for  a  second  time  that 
day  I  gave  an  account  of  myself. 

Mr.  Finkelstein  was  even  a  more  sympa- 
thetic listener  than  Mr.  Marx  had  been.  He 
kept  swaying  his  head  and  muttering  ejacula- 
tions, sometimes  in  English,  sometimes  in 
German,  but  always  indicative  of  his  eager 
interest  in  my  tale.  "  Mein  Gott !  "  "  Ist's 
moglich?"  "You  don't  say  so!"  "Vail, 
if  I  aifer!  "  And  his  kind  eyes  were  all  the 
time  fixed  upon  my  face  in  the  most  friendly 
and  encouraging  way.  In  the  end,  "  Vail,  I 
declare !  Vail,  my  kracious ! "  he  cried. 
"  Vail,  Shonny,  I  naifer  heard  nodings  like 
dot  in  all  my  life  before.  You  poor  little 
boy  !  All  alone  in  de  vorld,  mit  nobody  but 
dot  parparian,  dot  saivage,  to  take  care  of 
you.  Vail,  it  was  simply  heart-rending. 
Vail,  your  Uncle  Peter,  he'd  oughter  be 


100  NEW   YORK. 

tarred  and  feddered,  dot's  a  faict.  But  don't 
you  be  afraid,  Shonny ;  God  will  punish  him ; 
He  will,  shust  as  sure  as  I'm  sitting  here, 
Kraikory.  Oh  !  you're  a  good  boy,  Kraikory, 
you're  a  fine  boy.  You  make  me  loaf  you 
already  like  a  fader.  Vail,  Shonny,  and  so 
now  you  was  come  down  to  New  York  mit 
de  idea  of  getting  rich,  was  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  I  confessed. 

"  Vail,  dot's  a  first-claiss  idea.  Dot's  de 
same  idea  what  I  come  to  dis  country  mit. 
Vail,  now,  I  give  you  a  little  piece  of  infor- 
mation, Shonny;  what  maybe  you  didn't 
know  before.  Every  man  in  dis  vorld  was 
born  to  get  rich.  Did  you  know  dot, 
Shonny?" 

"  Why,  no,  sir ;  I  didn't  know  it.  Is  it 
true  ? " 

"  Yes,  sir;  it's  a  solemn  faict.  I  leaf  it 
to  Solly,  here.  Every  man  in  dis  vorld  is 
born  to  get  rich  —  only  some  of  'em  don't 
live  long  enough.  You  see  de  point  ?  " 

Mr.  Marx  and  I  joined  in  a  laugh.     Mr. 


NEW    YORK.  IOI 

Finkelstein  smiled  faintly,  and  said,  as  if  to 
excuse  himself,  "  Vail,  I  cain't  help  it.  I 
must  haif  my  shoke." 

"  The  grandest  thing  about  your  wit, 
fader-in-law,"  Mr.  Marx  observed,  "  is  dot 
you  don't  never  laugh  yourself." 

"  No ;  dot's  so,"  agreed  Mr.  Finkelstein. 
"  When  you  get  off  a  vitticism,  you  don't 
vant  to  laif  yourself,  for  fear  you  might  laif 
de  cream  off  it." 

"  Ain't  he  immense  ? "  demanded  Mr. 
Marx,  in  an  aside  to  me.  Then,  turning  to 
his  father-in-law :  "  Well,  as  I  was  going  to 
tell  you,  I  got  to  leaf  town  to-morrow  morn- 
ing for  a  trip  on  the  road ;  so  I  thought  I'd 
ask  you  to  let  Krekory  stay  here  mit  you  till 
I  get  back.  Den  I  go  to  vork  and  look 
around  for  a  chop  for  him." 

"Solly,"  replied  Mr.  Finkelstein,  "you  got 
a  good  heart ;  and  your  brains  is  simply 
remarkable.  You  done  shust  exaictly  right. 
I'm  very  glaid  to  have  such  a  fine  boy  for  a 
visitor.  But  look  at  here,  Solly;  I  was  tink- 


IO2  NEW    YORK. 

ing  vedder  I  might  not  manufacture  a  shop 
for  him  myself." 

"  Manufacture  a  chop  ?  How  you  mean  ?  " 
Mr.  Marx  queried. 

"  How  I  mean  ?  How  should  I  mean  ? 
I  mean  I  ain't  got  no  ready-mait  shops  on 
hand  shust  now  in  dis  establishment;  but 
I  might  mainufacture  a  shop  for  the  right 
party.  You  see  de  point  ?  " 

"  You  mean  you'll  make  a  chop  for  him  ? 
You  mean  you'll  give  him  a  chop  here,  by 
you  ?  "  cried  Mr.  Marx. 

"  Vail,  Solomon,  if  you  was  as  vise  as 
your  namesake,  you  might  haif  known  dot 
mitout  my  going  into  so  much  eggsblana- 
tions." 

"  My  kracious,  fader-in-law,  you're  simply 
elegant,  you're  simply  loafly,  and  no  mistake 
about  it.  Well,  I  svear  ! " 

"Oh!  dot's  all  right.  Don't  mention  it. 
I  took  a  chenu-wine  liking  to  Kraikory ; 
he's  got  so  much  enterprise  about  him,"  said 
Mr.  Finkelstein. 


NEW    YORK.  103 

"  Well,  what  sort  of  a  chop  would  it  be, 
fader-in-law  ?  "  questioned  Mr.  Marx. 

"Vail,  I  tink  I  give  him  de  position  of 
clerk,  errant  boy,  and  sheneral  assistant," 
Mr.  Finkelstein  replied. 

"  Well,  Krekory,  what  you  say  to  dot  ?  " 
Mr.  Marx  inquired. 

"  De  question  is,  do  you  accept  de  ap- 
pointment ?  "  added  Mr.  Finkelstein. 

"  O,  yes,  sir !  "  I  answered.  "  You're  very, 
very  kind,  you're  very  good  to  me.  I  — " 
I  had  to  stop  talking,  and  take  a  good  big 
swallow,  to  keep  down  my  tears ;  yet,  surely, 
I  had  nothing  to  cry  about ! 

"  Well,  fader-in-law,  what  vages  will  you 
pay?  "  pursued  Mr.  Marx. 

"  Vail,  Solly,  what  vages  was  dey  paying 
now  to  boys  of  his  age  ?  " 

"  Well,  they  generally  start  them  on  two 
dollars  a  week." 

"  Two  tollars  a  veek,  and  he  boards  and 
clodes  himself,  hey  ? " 

"  Yes,  fader-in-law,  dot's  de  system." 


IO4  NEW    YORK. 

"Vail,  Solly,  I  tell  you  what  I  do.  I 
board  and  clode  him,  and  give  him  a  quar- 
ter a  veek  to  get  drunk  on.  Is  dot  saitisfaic- 
tory  ?  " 

"  But,  sir,"  I  hastened  to  put  in,  pained 
and  astonished  at  his  remark,  "I  —  I  don't 
get  drunk." 

"O,  Lord,  Bubby!"  cried  Mr.  Marx, 
laughing.  "  You're  simply  killing !  He 
don't  mean  get  drunk.  Dot's  only  his  witty 
way  of  saying  pocket-money." 

"  Oh  !  I  —  I  understand,"  I  stammered. 

"  You  must  excuse  me,  Shonny,"  said  Mr. 
Finkelstein.  "  I  didn't  mean  to  make  you 
maid.  But  I  must  haif  my  shoke,  you 
know ;  I  cain't  help  it.  Vail,  Solly,  was  de 
proposition  saitisfaictory  ?  " 

"  Well,  Bubby,  was  Mr.  Finkelstein's  pro- 
position satisfactory  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Marx. 

"  O,  yes,  sir !  yes,  indeed,"  said  I. 

"  Vail,  all  right ;  dot  settles  it,"  concluded 
Mr.  Finkelstein.  "And  now,  Kraikory,  I 
pay  you  your  first  veek's  sailary  in  advaince, 


NEW    YORK.  IO5 

hey  ?  "  and  he  handed  me  a  crisp  twenty-five- 
cent  paper  piece. 

I  was  trying,  in  the  depths  of  my  own 
mind,  to  calculate  how  long  it  would  take 
me,  at  this  rate,  to  earn  the  hundred  dollars 
that  I  needed  for  my  journey  across  the  sea 
to  my  Uncle  Florimond.  The  outlook  was 
not  encouraging.  I  remembered,  though,  a 
certain  French  proverb  that  my  grandmother 
had  often  repeated  to  me,  and  I  tried  to  find 
some  consolation  in  it :  "  Tout  vient  a  la  fin 
a  qui  sait  attendre  "  —  Everything  comes  at 
last  to  him  who  knows  how  to  wait. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

AT  MR.'  FINKELSTEIN'S. 

So  you  see  me  installed  at  Mr.  Finkel- 
stein's  as  clerk,  errand  boy  and  general 
assistant.  Next  morning  I  entered  upon 
the  discharge  of  my  duties,  my  kind  em- 
ployer showing  me  what  to  do  and  how  to 
do  it.  Under  his  supervision  I  opened  and 
swept  out  the  store,  dusted  the  counter, 
polished  up  the  glass  and  nickel-work  of  the 
show-cases,  and,  in  a  word,  made  the  place 
ship-shape  and  tidy  for  the  day.  Then  we 
withdrew  into  the  back  parlor,  and  sat  down 
to  a  fine  savory  breakfast  that  the  old  house- 
keeper Henrietta  had  laid  there.  She  ate 
at  table  with  us,  but  uttered  not  a  syllable 
during  the  repast ;  and,  much  to  my  amaze- 
ment, Mr.  Finkelstein  talked  to  me  about 

106 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  IO/ 

her  in  her  very  presence  as  freely  and  as 
frankly  as  if  she  had  been  stone  deaf,  or  a 
hundred  miles  away. 

"  She  ain't  exaictly  what  you  call  hainsome, 
Kraikory,"  he  said ;  "  but  she's  as  solid  as 
dey  make  'em.  She  was  a  second  cousin  of 
my  deceased  vife's,  and  she's  vun  of  de 
graindest  cooks  in  de  United  States  of 
America.  May  be  you  don't  believe  it, 
hey?  Vail,  you  shust  vait  till  some  day 
you  eat  vun  of  her  big  dinners,  and  den 
you'll  see.  I  tell  you  what  I  do.  When 
Solly  gets  back  from  de  road  I'll  invite 
him  and  my  daughter  to  dinner  here  de 
first  Sunday  aifternoon,  shust  on  purpose 
for  you  to  see  de  vay  Henrietta  can  cook 
when  she  really  settles  down  to  pusiness. 
k's  simply  vunderful.  You'll  be  surprised. 
De  vay  she  cooks  a  raisined  fish,  sveet  and 
sour  —  ach !  it  makes  my  mout  vater  shust 
to  tink  of  it.  Vail,  she's  awful  ^0^-hearted- 
too,  Kraikory  ;  but  so  old  —  du  lieber  Herr  ! 
You  couldn't  hardly  believe  it.  It's  fearful, 


io8  AT  MR.  FINKELSTEIN'S. 

it's  aictually  fearful.  Why,  she's  old  enough 
to  be  my  m udder,  and  I'm  going  on  sixty- 
seven  already.  Dot's  a  solemn  faict." 

"  Is  she  deaf  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Daif  ? "  he  repeated.  "  Vail,  my  kracious ! 
What  put  dot  idea  in  your  head  ?  What  in 
de  vorld  made  you  tink  she's  daif?  She 
ain't  no  more  daif  as  you  are  yourself." 

"  Why,"  I  explained,  "  I  thought  she  might 
be  deaf,  because  she  doesn't  seem  to  notice 
what  you're  saying  about  her." 

"  Oh !  Vail,  dot  beats  de  deck.  Dot's 
pretty  goot.  O,  no !  dot  ain't  becoase  she's 
daif,  Kraikory ;  dot's  becoase  she's  so  funny. 
She's  vun  of  de  funniest  ladies  in  de  city  of 
New  York.  Why,  look  at  here ;  she's  lived 
in  dis  country  going  on  forty  years  already ; 
and  she's  so  funny  dot  she  ain't  learned  ten 
vorts  of  de  English  lainguage  yet.  Dot's  as 
true  as  I'm  alife.  She  don't  understand 
what  me  and  you  are  talking  about,  no  more 
as  if  we  spoke  Spainish." 

After  we  had  folded  our  napkins,  "  Vail, 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 


now,  Kraikory,"  began  Mr.  Finkelstein,  "  dis 
morning  you  got  a  lesson  in  being  sheneral 
assistant  already,  don't  you  ?  Vail,  now  I 
give  you  a  lesson  in  being  errant  boy. 
Come  along  mit  me."  He  led  me  to  the 
front  door  of  the  shop,  and,  pointing  to  a 
house  across  the  street,  resumed,  "  You  see 
dot  peelding  ofer  dere,  what's  got  de  sign 
out,  Ferdinand  Flisch,  photo-graipher  ?  You 
see  it  all  right,  hey  ?  Vail,  now  I  tell  you 
what  you  do.  You  run  along  ofer  dere,  and 
you  climb  up  to  de  top  floor,  which  is  where 
Mr.  Flisch's  estaiblishment  is  situated,  and 
you  aisk  to  see  Mr.  Flisch,  and  you  say  to 
him,  '  Mr.  Flisch,  Mr.  Finkelstein  sents  you 
his  coampliments,  and  chaillenges  you  to 
come  ofer  and  play  a  little  game  of  pinochle 
mit  him  dis  morning  '  —  you  understand  ? 
Vail,  now  run  along." 

Following  Mr.  Finkelstein's  instructions, 
I  mounted  to  the  top  story  of  the  house 
across  the  way,  and  opened  a  door  upon 
which  the  name  Flisch  was  emblazoned  in 


I  IO  AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 

large  gilt  script.  This  door  admitted  me  to 
a  small  ante-room ;  carpeted,  furnished  with 
a  counter,  several  chairs,  and  a  sofa,  hung 
all  round  the  walls  with  framed  photographs, 
presumably  specimens  of  Mr.  Flisch's  art, 
and  smelling  unpleasantly  of  the  chemicals 
that  photographers  employ.  A  very  pretty 
and  very  tiny  little  girl,  who  couldn't  have 
been  a  day  older  than  I,  if  she  was  so  old, 
sat  behind  the  counter,  reading  a  book.  At 
my  entrance,  she  glanced  up ;  and  her  eyes, 
which  were  large  and  dark,  seemed  to  ask 
me  what  I  wished. 

"  Please,  I  should  like  to  see  Mr.  Flisch," 
I  replied  to  her  tacit  question. 

"  I'll  go  call  him,"  said  she,  in  a  voice  that 
was  as  sweet  as  the  tinkle  of  a  bell.  "  Won't 
you  sit  down  ?  "  And  she  left  the  room. 

In  a  minute  or  two  she  came  back,  fol- 
lowed by  a  short,  plump,  red-faced,  bald- 
pated  little  old  gentleman,  with  a  brisk  and 
cheery  manner,  who,  upon  seeing  me,  de- 
manded, "  Well,  Sonny,  what  you  want?" 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  Ill 

I  delivered  the  message  that  Mr.  Finkel- 
stein  had  charged  me  with,  and  Mr.  Flisch 
responded,  "  All  right.  I'll  come  right 
along  with  you  now."  So  in  his  company 
I  recrossed  the  street.  On  the  way  he  re- 
marked, "  Well,  Sonny,  I  guess  I  never  seen 
you  before,  did  I  ?  Was  you  visiting  by 
Mr.  Finkelstein,  perhaps?" 

"  O,  no,  sir !  "  I  answered,  and  proceeded 
to  explain  my  status  in  Mr.  Finkelstein's 
household. 

"  Well,  Sonny,  you'll  have  a  mighty  easy 
time  of  it,"  Mr.  Flisch  informed  me.  "  You 
won't  die  of  hard  work.  Mr.  Finkelstein 
don't  do  no  business.  He  don't  need  to. 
He  only  keeps  that  store  for  fun." 

"  Now,  Kraikory,"  said  my  employer, 
when  we  had  reached  his  door,  "  me  and 
Mr.  Flisch,  we'll  go  in  de  parlor  and  play 
a  little  game  of  pinochle  togedder ;  and  now 
you  sit  down  outside  here  in  de  store  ;  and 
if  any  customers  come,  you  call  me." 

I  sat  in  the  store,  with  nothing  to  do,  all 


112  AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 

the  rest  of  the  forenoon ;  but,  idle  though 
I  was,  the  time  passed  quickly  enough. 
What  between  looking  out  of  the  window 
at  the  busy  life  upon  the  street  —  a  specta- 
cle of  extreme  novelty  and  interest  to  me  — 
and  thinking  about  my  own  affairs  and  the 
great  change  that  had  suddenly  come  over 
them,  my  mind  had  plenty  to  occupy  it ; 
and  I  was  quite  surprised  when  all  at  once 
the  clocks,  of  which  there  must  have  been 
at  least  a  dozen  in  the  shop,  began  to  strike 
twelve.  Thus  far  not  one  customer  had  pre- 
sented himself.  Just  at  this  instant,  how- 
ever, the  shop  door  opened,  and  the  bell 
above  it  sounded.  I  got  up  to  go  and  call 
Mr.  Finkelstein ;  but  when  I  looked  at  the 
person  who  had  entered,  I  saw  that  it  was 
no  customer,  after  all.  It  was  that  same 
pretty  little  girl  whom  I  had  noticed  behind 
the  counter  at  Mr.  Flisch's. 

"  I  came  to  tell  Mr.  Flisch  that  his  dinner 
is  ready,"  she  announced,  in  that  clear,  sweet 
voice  of  hers. 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 


"  I'll  go  tell  him,"  said  I. 

I  went  into  the  back  room,  where  the  air 
was  blue  with  tobacco  smoke,  and  where  the 
two  old  gentlemen  were  seated  over  their 
cards,  and  spoke  to  Mr.  Flisch. 

"  All  right,  Sonny  ;  I  come  right  away," 
he  answered  ;  and  I  returned  to  the  store. 

The  little  girl  was  still  there,  standing 
where  I  had  left  her. 

"  Mr.  Flisch  will  come  right  away,"  said  I. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  she. 

And  then,  with  undisguised  curiosity,  she 
and  I  just  stood  and  scanned  each  other  for 
a  moment  from  the  corners  of  our  eyes. 
For  my  part,  I  was  too  bashful  to  make 
any  advances,  though  I  should  have  liked 
to  scrape  acquaintance  with  her;  but  she, 
apparently,  had  more  courage,  for,  pretty 
soon,  "What's  your  name?"  she  asked. 

"  My  name  is  Gregory  Brace.  What's 
yours?  " 

"  Mine  is  Rosalind  Earle.  How  old  are 
you  ?  " 


114  AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 

"  I'm  twelve,  going  on  thirteen." 

"  I'm  eleven,  going  on  twelve." 

And  the  next  instant  she  had  vanished 
like  a  flash. 

Mr.  Flisch  shortly  followed  her;  and  it 
may  have  been  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later 
on,  that  my  attention  was  suddenly  arrested 
by  the  sound  of  music  issuing  from  the 
back  room,  where  Mr.  Finkelstein  remained 
alone.  I  recognized  the  tune  as  the  Carni- 
val of  Venice  ;  and  it  brought  my  heart  into 
my  mouth,  for  that  was  one  of  the  tunes 
that  my  grandmother  had  used  to  play  upon 
her  piano.  But  now  the  instrument  was 
not  a  piano.  Unless  my  ears  totally  de- 
ceived me,  it  was  a  hand-organ.  This  struck 
me  as  very  odd ;  and  I  went  to  the  door  of 
the  parlor,  and  looked  in.  There  sat  Mr. 
Finkelstein,  a  newspaper  open  before  him, 
and  a  cigar  between  his  fingers,  reading  and 
smoking ;  while  on  the  floor  in  front  of  him, 
surely  enough,  stood  a  hand-organ ;  and, 
with  his  foot  upon  the  crank  of  it,  he  was 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  I  I/ 

operating  the  instrument  just  as  you  would 
operate  the  wheel  of  a  bicycle.  Well,  I 
couldn't  help  smiling,  though  I  knew  that 
it  was  unmannerly  of  me  to  do  so.  The 
scene  was  really  too  ludicrous  for  any- 
thing. Mr.  Finkelstein  appeared  a  little 
embarrassed  when  he  spied  me  looking  at 
him,  and  stopped  his  playing,  and  said 
rather  sheepishly,  with  somewhat  of  the  air 
of  a  naughty  child  surprised  in  mischief, 
"Vail,  Kraikory,  I  suppose  you  tink  I'm 
crazy,  hey?  Vail,  I  cain't  help  it;  I'm  so 
fond  of  music.  But  look  at  here,  Kraikory  ; 
don't  you  say  nodings  to  Solly  about  it, 
will  you  ?  Dere's  a  goot  poy.  Don't  you 
mention  it  to  him.  He  vouldn't  naifer  let 
me  hear  de  laist  of  it." 

I  having  pledged  myself  to  secrecy,  Mr. 
Finkelstein  picked  the  hand-organ  up,  and 
locked  it  away  out  of  sight  in  a  closet.  But 
after  we  had  had  our  dinner,  he  brought  it 
forth  again,  and,  not  without  some  manifest 
hesitation,  addressed  me  thus :  "  Look  at 


n8  AT  MR.  FINKELSTEIN'S. 

here,  Kraikory ;  dere's  a  proverp  which 
says  dot  man  is  a  creature  of  haibits.  Vail, 
Kraikory,  I  got  a  sort  of  a  haibit  to  lie  down 
and  take  a  short  naip  every  day  aifter  my 
meals.  And  say,  Kraikory,  you  know  how 
fond  of  music  I  am,  don't  you  ?  I  simply 
dote  on  it,  Kraikory.  I  guess  maybe  I'm  de 
fondest  man  of  music  in  de  United  States 
of  America.  And — vail,  look  at  here, 
Kraikory,  as  you  ain't  got  nodings  in  par- 
ticular to  do,  I  tought  maybe  you  vouldn't 
mind  to  sit  here  a  few  minutes,  and  —  and 
shust  turn  dot  craink  a  little  while  I  go  to 
sleep  —  hey  ?  " 

I  assented  willingly;  so  Mr.  Finkelstein 
lay  down  upon  his  lounge,  and  I  began  to 
turn  the  crank,  thereby  grinding  out  the 
rollicking  measures  of  Finnigan's  Ball. 

"  My  kracious,  Kraikory,  you  do  it  splen- 
did," the  old  gentleman  exclaimed,  by  way 
of  encouragement.  "  You  got  a  graind  tail- 
ent  for  music,  Kraikory."  Then  I  heard 
him  chuckle  softly  to  himself,  and  murmur, 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  IIQ 

"  I  cain't  help  it,  I  aictually  cain't.  I  must 
haif  my  shoke."  Very  soon  he  was  snoring 
peacefully. 

Well,  to  cut  a  long  story  short,  my  first 
day  at  Mr.  Finkelstein's  passed  smoothly  by, 
and  so  did  the  next  and  the  next.  In  a  sur- 
prisingly short  time  I  became  quite  accus- 
tomed to  my  new  mode  of  life,  and  all  sense 
of  strangeness  wore  away.  Every  morning 
I  opened  and  tidied  up  the  shop ;  then  we 
breakfasted ;  then  the  routine  of  the  day 
began.  As  Mr.  Flisch  had  predicted,  I  had 
a  very  easy  time  of  it  indeed.  Every  after- 
noon I  played  the  hand-organ,  while  Mr. 
Finkelstein  indulged  in  his  siesta ;  almost 
every  forenoon  I  tended  the  store,  while  he 
and  Mr.  Flisch  amused  themselves  with 
pinochle  in  the  parlor.  Mr.  Marx  and  his 
wife  dined  with  us  I  should  think  as  often 
as  once  a  week;  Henrietta  surpassed  herself 
on  these  occasions,  and  I  came  to  entertain 
as  high  an  opinion  of  her  skill  in  cookery  as 
my  employer  could  have  wished. 


I2O  AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 

Between  little  Rosalind  Earle  and  myself 
a  great  friendship  rapidly  sprang  up.  On 
week-days  we  caught  only  fleeting  glimpses 
of  each  other ;  but  almost  every  Sunday  I 
used  to  go  to  see  her  at  her  home,  which 
was  in  Third  Avenue,  a  short  distance 
above  our  respective  places  of  business. 
Her  father,  who  had  been  a  newspaper  re- 
porter, was  dead ;  and  her  mother,  a  pale 
sad  lady,  very  kind  and  sweet,  went  out  by 
the  day  as  a  dressmaker  and  seampstress. 
They  were  wretchedly  poor;  and  that  was 
why  little  Rosalind,  who  ought  to  have  worn 
pinafores,  and  gone  to  school,  had  to  work 
for  her  living  at  Mr.  Flisch's,  like  a  grown- 
up person.  But  her  education  proceeded 
after  a  fashion,  nevertheless.  In  her  spare 
moments  during  the  day  she  would  study 
her  lessons,  and  in  the  evening  at  home 
she  would  say  them  to  her  mother.  Though 
she  was  my  junior  by  a  year  and  more,  she 
was  already  doing  compound  interest  in 
arithmetic,  whereas  I  had  never  got  beyond 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  121 

long  division.  This  made  me  feel  heartily 
ashamed  of  myself,  and  so  I  invested  a  cou- 
ple of  dollars  in  some  second-hand  school- 
books,  and  thenceforth  devoted  my  spare 
moments  to  study,  too.  Almost  every  Sun- 
day, as  I  have  said,  I  used  to  go  to  see  her ; 
and  if  the  weather  was  fine,  her  mother 
would  take  us  for  an  outing  in  Central 
Park,  where  we  would  have  a  jolly  good 
time  racing  each  other  over  the  turf  of  the 
common,  or  admiring  the  lions  and  tigers 
and  monkeys  and  hippopotamuses,  at  the 
Arsenal.  Yes,  I  loved  little  Rosalind  very 
dearly,  and  every  minute  that  I  spent  at 
her  side  was  the  happiest  sort  of  a  minute 
for  me. 

Mr.  Finkelstein,  when  he  first  noticed  me 
poring  over  my  school-books  in  the  shop, 
expressed  the  liveliest  kind  of  satisfaction 
with  my  conduct. 

"  Dot's  right,  Kraikory,"  he  cried.  "  Dot's 
maiknificent  Go  ahead  mit  your  education. 
Dere  ain't  nodings  like  it.  A  first-claiss  edu- 


122  AT   MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 

cation  —  vail,  sir,  it's  de  graindest  advain- 
tage  a  feller  can  haif  in  de  baittle  of  life. 
Yes,  sir,  dot's  a  faict.  You  go  ahead  mit 
your  education,  and  you  study  real  hard, 
and  you'll  get  to  be  —  why,  you  might  get 
to  be  an  alderman,  no  mistake  about  it. 
But  look  at  here,  Kraikory;  tell  me;  where 
you  got  de  books,  hey  ?  You  bought  'em  ? 
You  don't  say  so  ?  Vail,  what  you  pay  for 
dem,  hey,  Kraikory  ?  Two  tollars !  Two 
aictual  tollars !  My  kracious !  Vail,  look 
at  here,  Kraikory;  I  like  to  make  you  a 
little  present  of  dem  books,  so  here's  a  two 
tollar  pill  to  reimburse  you.  Oh  !  dot's  all 
right.  Don't  mention  it.  Put  it  in  de  baink. 
Do  what  you  please  mit  it.  I  got  anudder." 
And  every  now  and  then  during  the  sum- 
mer he  would  inquire,  "  Vail,  Kraikory,  how 
you  getting  on  mit  your  education?  Vail, 
I  suppose  you  must  know  pretty  much 
aiferydings  by  dis  time,  hey  ?  Vail,  now  I 
give  you  a  sum.  If  I  can  buy  fife  barrels  of 
aipples  for  six  tollars  and  a  quowter,  how 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  123 

much  will  seventeen  barrels  of  potatoes  coast 
me,  hey  ?  .  .  .  Ach,  I  was  only  shoking, 
was  I  ?  Vail,  dot's  a  faict ;  I  was  only  shok- 
ing ;  and  you  was  pretty  smart  to  find  it  out. 
But  now,  shoking  aside,  I  tell  you  what  you 
do.  You  keep  right  on  mit  your  education, 
and  you  study  real  hard,  and  you'll  get  to  be 
—  why,  you  might  get  to  be  as  big  a  man  as 
Horace  Greeley,  aictually."  Horace  Greeley 
was  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  that  year, 
and  he  had  no  more  ardent  partisan  than 
my  employer. 

After  the  summer  had  passed,  and  Sep- 
tember came,  Mr.  Finkelstein  called  me 
into  the  parlor  one  day,  and  began,  "  Now, 
look  at  here,  Kraikory;  I  got  somedings 
important  to  talk  to  you  about.  I  been 
tinking  about  dot  little  maitter  of  your  edu- 
cation a  good  deal  lately ;  and  I  talked  mit 
Solly  about  it,  and  got  his  advice ;  and  at 
laist  I  made  up  my  mind  dot  you  oughter 
go  to  school.  You  got  so  much  aimbition 
about  you,  dot  if  you  get  a  first-claiss  educa- 


124  AT  MR.  FINKELSTEIN'S. 

tion  while  you're  young,  you  might  get  to 
be  vun  of  de  biggest  men  in  New  York  City 
aifter  you're  grown  up.  Vail,  me  and  Solly, 
we  talked  it  all  ofer,  and  we  made  up  our 
mind  dot  you  better  go  to  school  right  avay. 
"  Vail,  now  I  tell  you  what  I  do.  I  found 
out  de  public  schools  open  for  de  season 
next  Monday  morning.  Vail,  next  Monday 
morning  I  take  you  up  to  de  public  school 
in  Fifty-first  Street,  and  I  get  you  aidmitted. 
And  now  I  tell  you  what  I  do.  If  you 
study  real  hard,  and  get  A-number-vun 
marks,  and  cratchuate  all  right  when  de 
time  comes — vail,  den  I  send  you  to  col- 
lege !  Me  and  Solly,  we  talked  it  all  ofer, 
and  dot's  what  we  made  up  our  minds  we 
oughter  do.  Dere  ain't  nodings  like  a  good 
education,  Kraikory ;  you  can  bet  ten  tou- 
sand  tollars  on  dot.  When  I  was  your  age 
I  didn't  haif  no  chaince  at  vun ;  and  dot's 
why  I'm  so  eeknorant.  But  now  you  got 
de  chaince,  Kraikory ;  and  you  go  ahead 
and  take  advaintage  of  it.  My  kracious ! 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  125 

When  I  see  you  cratchuate  from  college,  I'll 
be  so  prout  I  von't  know  what  to  do." 

I  leave  you  to  form  your  own  opinion  of 
Mr.  Finkelstein's  generosity,  as  well  as  of 
the  gratitude  that  it  inspired  in  me.  Next 
Monday  morning  I  entered  the  public  school 
in  Fifty-first  Street,  and  a  little  less  than 
two  years  later — namely,  in  the  spring  of 
1874  —  I  graduated.  I  had  studied  "real 
hard,"  and  got  "  A-number-vun "  marks ; 
Mr.  Finkelstein  was  as  good  as  his  word, 
and  that  same  spring  I  passed  the  examin- 
ations for  admission  to  the  Introductory 
Class  of  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York. 

Well,  there !  In  a  couple  of  sentences  I 
have  skipped  over  as  many  years ;  and  not 
one  word  about  the  hero  of  my  story ! 

"  But  what,"  1  can  hear  you  ask,  "  what 
of  your  Uncle  Florimond  in  all  this  time  ? 
Had  you  given  up  your  idea  of  going  to 
him  ?  had  you  forgotten  your  ideal  of  him 
—  had  he  ceased  to  be  a  moving  force  in 
your  life  ? " 


126  AT  MR.  FINKELSTEIN'S. 

No ;  to  each  of  these  questions  my  answeV 
must  be  a  prompt  and  emphatic  no. 

I  had  not  by  any  means  given  up  my  idea 
of  going  to  him  ;  but  I  had,  for  reasons  that 
seemed  good,  put  off  indefinitely  the  day  of 
my  departure.  Two  or  three  weeks  after 
my  arrival  at  Mr.  Finkelstein's  I  wrote 
Uncle  Florimond  a  letter,  and  told  him  of 
the  new  turn  that  my  affairs  had  taken.  I 
did  not  say  anything  about  my  Uncle  Peter's 
treatment  of  me,  because  I  felt  somehow  re- 
luctant to  let  him  know  how  unjust  and  un- 
kind his  own  sister's  son,  my  own  father's 
brother,  could  be,  and  because,  also,  I 
thought  it  would  be  scarcely  fair  and 
above-board  for  me  to  tell  tales,  now  that 
our  bygones  were  bygones.  I  simply  said 
that  I  had  left  Norwich,  and  come  to  New 
York,  and  gone  into  business ;  and  that  my 
purpose  was  to  earn  a  lot  of  money  just  as 
quickly  as  I  could,  and  then  to  set  sail  for 
France. 

I  received  no  answer  from  him  till  about 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  127 

six  months  afterward ;  and  in  this  he  said  that 
he  was  glad  I  meant  to  come  to  France,  but 
he  thought  it  was  a  pity  that  I  should  go 
into  business  so  early  in  my  youth,  for  that 
must  of  course  interrupt  my  education. 

I  hastened  to  reply  that,  since  I  had  writ- 
ten my  former  letter  to  him,  my  outlook  had 
again  changed ;  that  my  kind  and  liberal 
employer  had  sent  me  to  school,  where  I 
was  working  as  hard  as  I  knew  how,  with 
the  promise  of  a  college  course  before  me  if 
I  showed  proper  zeal  and  aptitude. 

I  had  to  wait  more  than  a  year  now  for 
his  next  epistle  ;  but  it  came  at  last  one  day 
towards  the  close  of  the  vacation  that  inter- 
vened between  my  graduation  from  school 
and  the  beginning  of  my  career  at  college. 

"  I  have  been  ill  and  in  trouble,  my  dear 
little  nephew,"  he  wrote,  "  since  the  recep- 
tion of  thy  last  letter  so  good  and  so  gentle ; 
and  I  have  lacked  both  the  force  and  the 
heart  to  write  to  thee.  At  this  moment  at 
length  it  goes  better;  and  I  seize  the  first 


128  AT  MR.  FINKELSTEIN'S. 

occasion  to  take  my  pen.  The  news  of  the 
progress  which  thou  makest  in  thy  studies 
gives  me  an  infinite  pleasure,  as  does  also 
thy  hope  of  a  course  at  the  university.  And 
though  I  become  from  more  to  more  impa- 
tient to  meet  thee,  and  to  see  with  my 
proper  eyes  the  grandson  of  my  adored 
sister,  I  am  happy,  nevertheless,  to  force 
myself  to  wait  for  an  end  so  precious. 
That  thou  mayst  become  a  gentleman  well- 
instructed  and  accomplished,  it  is  my  sin- 
cere desire ;  for  it  is  that,  I  am  sure  of  it, 
which  my  cherished  sister  would  most  ar- 
dently have  wished.  Be  then  industrious ; 
study  well  thy  lessons ;  grow  in  spirit  as  in 
body;  remember  that,  though  thy  name  is 
different,  thou  art  the  last  of  the  la  Bour- 
bon naye.  I  astonish  myself,  however,  that 
thy  Uncle  Peter  does  not  charge  himself 
with  the  expenses.  Is  it  that  he  has  not 
the  means  ?  I  have  believed  him  very  rich. 
"  Present  my  respects  to  thy  worthy  pa- 
tron, that  good  Finkelstein,  who,  though 


AT    MR.    FIXKELSTEIN  S.  I2Q 

bourgeois  and  shopkeeper,  I  must  suppose 
is  a  man  of  heart ;  and  think  ever  with  ten- 
derness of  thy  old  devoted  uncle,  de  la 
Bourbonnaye. 

"  Paris,  the  3  yember,  1874." 

yember  was  Uncle  Florimond's  quaint 
French  way  of  writing  September,  Sept,  as 
you  know,  being  French  for  seven. 

And  now  as  to  those  other  questions  that 
you  have  asked  me  —  so  far  was  I  from  hav- 
ing forgotten  my  ideal  of  him,  so  far  was  he 
from  having  ceased  to  be  a  moving  force  in 
my  life,  I  have  not  any  doubt  whatever  that 
the  thought  of  my  relationship  with  him, 
and  my  desire  to  appear  to  advantage  in  his 
eyes,  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  fostering 
my  ambition  as  a  scholar.  Certainly,  the 
nephew  of  Florimond  Marquis  de  la  Bour- 
bonnaye must  not  let  any  boy  of  ordinary 
lineage  stand  above  him  in  his  classes ;  and 
then,  besides,  how  much  more  highly  would 
Uncle  Florimond  consider  me,  if,  when  we 
met,  he  found  not  an  untutored  ignoramus, 


I3O  AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 

but,  in  his  own  words,  "a  gentleman  well- 
instructed  and  accomplished ! " 

During  the  two  years  that  I  have  skipped 
over  in  such  summary-  fashion,  my  friendship 
with  little  Rosalind  Earle  had  continued  as 
active  and  as  cordial  as  it  had  been  at  the 
beginning.  She  had  grown  quite  tall,  and 
even  prettier  than  ever,  with  her  oval  face 
and  olive  skin,  her  soft  brown  hair  and  large 
dark  eyes,  and  was  really  almost  a  young 
lady.  She  had  kept  pace  with  me  in  my 
studies  also,  I  having  acted  as  her  teacher. 
Every  Sunday  at  her  home  I  would  go  over 
with  her  all  my  lessons  for  the  past  week, 
imparting  to  her  as  intelligently  as  I  was 
able  what  I  myself  had  learned.  This  would 
supply  her  with  subject-matter  for  her  study 
during  the  week  to  come ;  so  that  on  the 
following  Sunday  she  would  be  ready  for  a 
new  send-off.  This  was  capital  drill  for  me, 
because,  in  order  to  instruct  another,  I  had 
to  see  that  my  own  knowledge  was  exact 
and  thorough.  And  then,  besides,  I  en- 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  13! 

joyed  these  Sunday  afternoon  conferences 
with  Rosalind  so  heartily,  that  they  light- 
ened the  labor  of  learning,  and  made  what 
to  a  boy  is  usually  dull  grind  and  drudgery, 
to  me  an  abundant  source  of  pleasure. 
Rosalind  retained  her  situation  at  Mr. 
Flisch's,  but  her  salary  had  been  materi- 
ally increased.  She  was  only  thirteen  years 
old,  yet  she  earned  the  dazzling  sum  of  six 
dollars  every  week.  This  was  because  she 
had  acquired  the  art  of  retouching  nega- 
tives, and  had  thus  trebled  her  value  to  her 
employer. 

But  I  had  made  another  friend  during 
those  two  years,  whose  influence  upon  my  life 
at  that  time  was  perhaps  even  greater  than 
Rosalind's.  Among  my  classmates  at  the 
school  in  Fifty-first  Street  there  was  a  boy 
named  Arthur  Ripley,  older  than  I,  taller, 
stronger,  a  very  handsome  fellow,  with  blue 
eyes  and  curling  hair,  very  bright,  and  seem- 
ingly very  good-natured,  whom  I  had  ad- 
mired privately  from  the  moment  I  had  first 


132  AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 

seen  him.  He,  however,  had  taken  no  notice 
of  me ;  and  so  we  had  never  got  especially 
well  acquainted,  until  one  day  I  chanced  to 
hear  him  speak  a  few  words  of  French ;  and 
his  accent  was  so  good  that  I  couldn't  help 
wondering  how  he  had  come  by  it. 

"Say,  then,  Ripley,"  I  demanded,  in  the 
Gallic  tongue,  but  with  Saxon  bluntness, 
"  how  does  it  happen  that  you  speak  French 
so  well  ?  Your  pronunciation  is  truly  ex- 
traordinary." 

"  And  why  not  ?  "  he  retorted.  "  I  have 
spoken  it  since  my  childhood.  My  grand- 
mother— the  mother  of  my  father  —  was  a 
French  lady." 

"  Hold,"  cried  I.  "  Really  ?  And  so  was 
mine." 

Thereupon  we  fell  into  conversation.  We 
got  on  famously  together.  From  that  hour 
we  were  intimates.  I  was  admitted  into 
Ripley's  "  set,"  which  included  all  the  nicest 
boys  of  the  school ;  and  Ripley  invited  me 
to  hi§  home,  which,  with  its  beautiful  pict- 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  133 

ures  and  books  and  furnishings,  and  gen- 
eral air  of  comfort  and  refinement,  struck  me 
as  the  loveliest  place  I  had  ever  set  my  foot 
in,  and  where  his  mother  and  father  made  me 
feel  instantly  and  entirely  at  my  ease.  They 
talked  French  to  me;  and  little  by  little  drew 
from  me  the  whole  story  of  my  life ;  and  when 
I  had  done,  "  Ah !  my  poor  little  one,"  said 
his  mother,  with  a  tenderness  that  went 
straight  to  my  heart,  <;  how  thy  lot  has  been 
hard  !  Come,  let  me  kiss  thee."  And, "  Hold, 
my  little  man,"  said  his  father.  "  You  are  a 
good  and  brave  boy,  and  I  am  glad  that  my 
son  has  found  such  a  comrade.  Moreover, 
do  you  know,  you  come  of  one  of  the  most 
illustrious  families  not  only  of  France,  but 
even  of  Europe  ?  The  la  Bourbonnaye  are 
of  the  most  ancient  nobility,  and  in  each 
generation  they  have  distinguished  them- 
selves. At  Paris  there  is  an  important  street 
named  for  them.  A  Marquis  de  la  Bour- 
bonnaye won  great  celebrity  as  an  admiral 
under  Louis  xv. ;  another,  his  son,  I  believe, 


134  AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S. 

was  equally  renowned  as  a  royalist  general 
during  the  revolution." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  I  put  in,  delighted  at  his  famil- 
iarity with  the  history  of  our  house ;  "  they 
were  the  father  and  the  grandfather  of  my 
grandmother." 

"  But  I  had  supposed  that  the  family  was 
extinct.  You  teach  me  that  it  survives  still 
in  the  person  of  your  Uncle  Florimond.  I 
am  content  of  it." 

Arthur  Ripley  and  I  became  as  intimate 
as  only  boys,  I  think,  can  become.  We  were 
partners  in  tops,  marbles,  decalcomanies,  and 
postage  stamps.  We  spent  the  recess  hour 
together  every  day.  We  walked  home  to- 
gether every  afternoon.  We  set  out  pleas- 
ure hunting  almost  every  Saturday  —  now 
to  watch  or  to  take  part  in  a  base-ball  match, 
now  to  skate  in  Central  Park,  now  to  row  on 
the  Harlem  River,  now  to  fish  in  the  same 
muddy  stream,  where,  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection,  we  never  so  much  as  got  a  single 
bite.  He  was  "  Rip,"  to  me,  and  to  him  I 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  I  35 

was  "  Greg."  We  belonged,  as  has  been 
said,  to  the  same  set  at  school ;  at  college 
we  joined  the  same  debating  society,  and 
pledged  ourselves  to  the  same  Greek-letter 
fraternity. 

He  was  the  bravest,  strongest  fellow  I 
ever  knew ;  a  splendid  athlete ;  excelling  in 
all  sports  that  required  skill  or  courage. 
He  was  frankness,  honesty,  generosity  per- 
sonified ;  a  young  prince  whom  I  admired 
and  loved,  who  compelled  love  and  admir- 
ation from  everybody  who  knew  him.  In 
the  whole  school  there  was  not  a  boy  whom 
Ripley  couldn't  whip ;  he  could  have  led  us 
all  in  scholarship  as  well,  only  he  was  care- 
less and  rather  lazy,  and  didn't  go  in  for 
high  standing,  or  that  sort  of  thing.  He 
wrote  the  best  compositions,  however,  and 
made  the  best  declamations.  I  tell  you,  to 
hear  him  recite  Spartacus's  address  to  the 
gladiators  — "  Ye  call  me  chief,  and  ye  do 
well  to  call  him  chief  who  for  twelve  long 
years  has  met  upon  the  bloody  sands  of  the 


136  AT  MR.  FINKELSTEIN'S. 

arena  every  shape  of  man  and  beast  that 
the  broad  empire  of  Rome  could  furnish" — • 
I  tell  you,  it  was  thrilling.  Ripley's  father 
was  a  lawyer;  and  he  meant  to  be  a  lawyer, 
too.  So  far  as  he  was  responsible  for  it, 
Ripley's  influence  over  me  was  altogether 
good.  What  bad  came  of  my  association 
with  him,  I  alone  was  to  blame  for. 

Some  bad  did  come,  and  now  I  must  tell 
you  about  it. 

He  and  the  other  boys  of  our  circle  were 
gentlemen's  sons,  who  lived  with  their  pa- 
rents in  handsome  houses,  wore  fine  clothes, 
had  plenty  of  pocket-money,  and  generally 
cut  a  very  dashing  figure  ;  whereas  I  —  I 
was  the  dependent  of  a  petty  Third-Avenue 
Jewish  shopkeeper ;  I  had  scarcely  any 
pocket-money  whatever ;  and  as  for  my 
clothes  —  my  jackets  were  usually  thread- 
bare, and  my  trousers  ornamented  at  an  ob- 
trusive point  with  two  conspicuous  patches, 
that  Henrietta  had  neatly  inserted  there  — 
trousers,  moreover,  which  had  been  originally 


AT    MR.    FINKELSTEIN  S.  137 

designed  for  the  person  of  Mr.  Marx,  but 
which  the  skillful  Henrietta  had  cut  down 
and  adjusted  to  my  less  copious  proportions. 

And  now  the  bad,  if  perhaps  not  unnatural, 
result  of  all  this  was  to  pique  my  vanity,  and 
to  arouse  in  me  a  certain  false  and  quite 
wrong  and  improper  shame  of  my  condition. 
I  was  ashamed  because  I  could  not  spend 
money  as  my  companions  did ;  I  was  ashamed 
of  my  shabby  clothing ;  I  was  ashamed  of 
my  connection  with  Mr.  Finkelstein  ;  I  was 
even  a  little  ashamed  of  my  intimacy  with 
Rosalind  Earle,  for  she  too  occupied  a  very 
humble  station  in  the  world. 

And,  as  the  obverse  of  this  false  shame,  I 
became  inflated  with  a  pride  that  was  equally 
false  and  wrong.  I  was  as  good  a  gentle- 
man as  anybody,  if  not  better.  I  was  the 
dependent  of  a  Third-Avenue  shopkeeper, 
true  enough.  But  I  was  also  the  nephew  of 
the  Marquis  de  la  Bourbonnaye.  And  I  am 
afraid  that  I  got  into  the  habit  of  bragging 
a  good  deal  about  my  relationship  with  that 


138  AT  MR.  FINKELSTEIN'S. 

aristocratic  person.  Anyhow,  my  state  of 
mind  was  not  by  any  means  a  wholesome  or 
a  happy  one ;  and  by  and  by  it  bore  practical 
consequences  that  were  not  wholesome  or 
happy  either. 


CHAPTER   V. 

PRIDE    AND   A    FALL. 

ARTHUR  RIPLEY,  as  I  have  said,  meant  to 
be  a  lawyer.  He  was  full  of  enthusiasm  for 
his  future  profession,  and  never  tired  of  talk- 
ing about  it.  In  his  room  at  home  he  had 
three  or  four  big  law-books,  bound  in  yellow 
calf-skin,  which  he  used  to  read  for  his  pleas- 
ure, just  as  we  other  boys  would  read  our 
story-books ;  and  he  seemed  to  know  their 
contents  by  heart.  At  least,  we  gave  him 
the  credit  for  knowing  them  by  heart.  He 
passed  among  us  for  little  less  than  a  Solo- 
mon of  legal  wisdom.  His  opinion  upon  a 
legal  question  had,  to  our  thinking,  the 
authority  of  a  judgment  from  the  bench; 
and  if  one  of  our  number  had  got  into  a 
legal  difficulty  of  any  sort,  I  am  sure  he 

'39 


I4O  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

would  have  gone  to  Ripley  for  aid  and 
counsel  as  readily  and  as  confidently  as  to 
the  most  eminent  jurist  at  the  bar. 

This  being  premised,  you  will  easily  un- 
derstand the  impression  made  upon  me  by 
the  following  conversation  which  I  had  with 
Ripley  one  day  in  the  early  summer  of  1875. 

We  had  just  passed  our  examinations  for 
promotion  from  the  Introductory  to  the 
Freshman  class  at  college,  and  our  conse- 
quent vacation  had  just  begun.  I  was 
minding  the  shop,  while  Messrs.  Flisch 
and  Finkelstein  smoked  their  cigars  and 
played  their  pinochle  in  the  back  room, 
and  Ripley  was  keeping  me  company.  We 
had  been  talking  about  my  grandmother; 
and  presently  Ripley  queried :  "  Look  here, 
Greg,  she  was  a  woman  of  some  property, 
wasn't  she?  I  mean  to  say  she  lived  in 
good  style,  had  plenty  of  money,  was  com- 
fortable and  well-to-do,  hey?  " 

"  Why,  yes,"  I  answered,  "  she  was  pretty 
well-off — why,  about  as  well  as  anybody  in 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  14! 

Norwich  Town,  I  suppose.  Why  do  you 
ask  ?  " 

"  Because  —  what  I  should  like  to  know 
is,  why  didn't  she  leave  anything  to  you  ?  " 

"  Why,  how  could  she  ?  I  was  only  her 
grandchild.  My  Uncle  Peter  was  her  son. 
Don't  you  see  ?  " 

"  But  that  doesn't  make  any  difference. 
Your  father  being  dead,  you  were,  equally 
with  your  uncle,  her  legal  heir  and  next-of- 
kin.  And  as  long  as  she  was  so  fond  of 
you,  it  seems  kind  of  funny  she  didn't  pro- 
vide for  you  in  any  way." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  her  legal  heir 
and  next-of-kin  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  know  that  ?  Why,  a  legal 
heir  and  next-of-kin  is  a  person  entitled  to 
take  under  the  statutes  of  descent  and  dis- 
tribution. For  instance,  if  your  grand- 
mother had  died  intestate,  you  would  have 
come  in  for  half  of  all  the  property  she 
left,  your  Uncle  Peter  taking  the  other 
half.  See  the  point  ?  "  > 


142  PRIDE    AND   A    FALL. 

"  Can't  say  I  do.  You're  too  high-up  for 
me,  with  your  legal  slang.  What  does  intes- 
tate mean  ? " 

"  Why,  intestate  —  why,  that  means  with- 
out having  made  a  will.  When  a  person 
dies  without  leaving  a  will,  he  is  said  to 
have  died  intestate." 

"  Well,  I  guess  my  grandmother  died  intes- 
tate, then.  I  don't  believe  she  left  any  will." 

"  She  didn't  ?  Why,  if  she  didn't  leave  a 
will  —  Oh !  but  she  must  have.  Look  here, 
Greg,  this  is  serious.  Are  you  sure  she 
didn't  ?  " 

"  O,  no!  of  course  I'm  not  sure.  I  never 
thought  of  the  matter  before,  and  so  I  can't 
be  sure.  But  I  don't  believe  she  did." 

"  But,  Greg,  if  she  didn't  —  if  she  didn't 
leave  a  will,  disinheriting  you,  and  bequeath- 
ing everything  to  Peter  —  man  alive,  what 
are  you  doing  here  in  old  Finkelstein's  jew- 
elry shop  ?  Why,  Greg,  you're  rich.  You're 
absolute  owner  of  half  of  her  estate." 

"  O,  no !  I'm  perfectly  sure  she  never  did 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  143 

that.  If  she  made  any  will  at  all,  she  didn't 
disinherit  me,  and  give  everything  to  Uncle 
Peter.  She  cared  a  great  deal  more  for  me 
than  she  did  for  Uncle  Peter.  I'm  sure  she 
never  made  a  will  favoring  him  above  me. 
I  always  supposed  that  she  had  died,  as  you 
call  it,  intestate ;  and  so,  he  being  her  son, 
the  property  had  descended  to  him  in  the 
regular  course  of  events." 

"  But  don't  I  tell  you  that  it  wouldn't  have 
descended  to  him  ?  It  would  hctVe  descended 
to  both  of  you  in  equal  shares.  Here's  the 
whole  business  in  a  nut-shell :  either  she 
did  leave  a  will,  cutting  you  off  with  a 
shilling;  or  else  you're  entitled  to  fifty 
cents  in  every  dollar  that  she  owned." 

"  But  I  have  never  received  a  penny.  If 
what  you  say  is  true,  how  do  you  account 
for  that  ?  " 

"  There's  just  the  point.  If  your  idea 
about  the  will  is  correct,  your  Uncle  Peter 
must  be  a  pretty  rogue  indeed.  He's  been 
playing  a  sharp  game,  Greg,  and  cheating 


144  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

you  out  of  your  rights.  And  we  can  make 
it  hot  enough  for  him,  I  tell  you.  We  can 
compel  him  to  divide  up ;  and  inside  of  a 
month  you'll  be  rolling  in  wealth." 

"Oh!  come,  Rip,"  I  protested,  "fen  fooling 
a  fellow  about  a  thing  like  this." 

"  But  I'm  not  fooling.  I  never  was  more 
in  earnest  in  all  my  life.  It's  as  plain  as  the 
nose  on  your  face.  There  are  no  two  ways 
about  it.  Ask  anybody." 

"But  —  but  then  —  but  then  I'm  rich  — 
rich!" 

"  That's  what  you  are,  unless,  by  a  prop- 
erly executed  will,  your  grandmother  disin- 
herited you." 

"  But  I  tell  you  I  know  she  never  did  that. 
It  stands  to  reason  that  she  didn't." 

"  Well,  sir,  then  it  only  remains  for  you  to 
claim  your  rights  at  the  hands  of  your  amia- 
ble uncle,  and  to  open  a  bank  account." 

"O  my  goodness!  O,  Rip!  Oh!  it's 
impossible.  It's  too  —  too  glorious  to  be 
true,"  I  cried,  as  a  realizing  sense  of  my 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  145 

position  rushed  upon  me.  My  heart  was 
pounding  like  a  hammer  against  my  ribs ; 
my  breath  was  coming  short  and  swift;  my 
brain  was  in  a  whirl.  I  felt  dazzled  and 
bewildered ;  and  yet  I  felt  a  wondrous, 
thrilling  joy,  a  great  glow  of  exultation,  that 
sent  me  dancing  around  the  shop  like  a 
maniac,  wringing  my  hands  in  self-con- 
gratulation. 

I  was  rich !  Only  think,  I  was  rich !  I 
could  take  my  proper  station  now,  and  cut 
my  proper  figure  in  the  world.  Good-by, 
patched  trousers,  good-by,  shop,  good-by 
all  such  low,  humiliating  things.  Welcome 
opulence,  position,  purple  and  fine  linen. 
Hurrah  !  I  would  engage  a  passage  upon 
the  very  first,  the  very  fastest  steamer,  and 
sail  away  to  that  brilliant,  courtly  country 
where  my  Uncle  Florimond,  resplendent  in 
the  trappings  of  nobility,  awaited  me  with 
open  arms,  there  to  live  in  the  state  and 
fashion  that  would  become  the  nephew  of 
a  marquis.  I  would  burn  my  plebeian  ships 


146  PRIDE    AND   A    FALL. 

behind  me.  I  would  do  this,  that,  and  the 
other  wonderful  thing.  I  saw  it  all  in  a 
single  radiant  glance. 

But  what  you  see  more  plainly  than  any- 
thing else,  I  did  not  see  at  all. 

I  did  not  see  that  I  was  accepting  my 
good  fortune  in  an  altogether  wrong  and 
selfish  spirit.  I  did  not  see  that  my  first 
thought  in  my  prosperity  ought  to  have  been 
for  those  who  had  stood  by  me  in  my  adver- 
sity. I  did  not  see  that  my  first  impulse 
ought  to  have  been  now  to  make  up  in  some 
wise  to  my  friend  and  benefactor,  Mr.  Fin- 
kelstein,  for  his  great  goodness  and  kindness 
to  me.  I  did  not  see  that  I  was  an  arrant 
little  snob,  an  ungrateful  little  coxcomb.  A 
mixture  of  false  shame  and  evil  pride  had 
puffed  me  up  like  so  much  inflammable  gas, 
which  —  Ripley  having  unwittingly  applied 
the  spark  to  it  —  had  now  burst  into  flame. 

"  O,  Rip  !  "  I  cried  again,  "  it's  too  glorious 
to  be  true." 

"  Well,  now,"  cut  in  Ripley,  "  let's  be  prac- 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  147 

tical.  What  you  want  to  do  is  step  into 
your  kingdom.  Well,  to-day's  Saturday, 
isn't  it  ?  Well,  now,  I  propose  that  day 
after  to-morrow,  Monday,  you  and  I  go  to 
Norwich.  There  we  can  make  a  search  in 
the  Probate  Office,  and  find  out  for  certain 
just  how  the  facts  stand.  Then  we  can 
come  back  here  and  put  the  case  in  the 
hands  of  my  father,  who's  a  lawyer,  and  who 
will  have  a  guardian  appointed  for  you,  and 
do  everything  else  that's  necessary.  See  ? 
Now,  the  question  is,  Will  you  go  to  Norwich 
with  me  Monday  night  ?  " 

"  Won't  I,  though !  "  was  my  response. 

And  then  Rip  and  I  just  sat  there  in  the 
shop,  and  talked,  and  talked,  and  talked, 
planning  out  my  life  for  the  future,  and 
wondering  exactly  how  rich  I  was  going  to 
be.  We  surmised  that  my  grandmother 
could  not  possibly  have  left  less  than  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars,  in  which  event  I 
should  come  in  for  a  cool  fifty  thousand. 
We  employed  the  strongest  language  at  our 


148  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

command  to  stigmatize  my  Uncle  Peter's 
lascality  in  having  for  so  long  a  time  kept 
me  out  of  my  just  rights  ;  and  we  gloated  in 
imagination  over  his  chagrin  and  his  discom- 

O  O 

fiture  when  we  should  compel  him  to  render 
an  account  of  his  stewardship  and  to  disgorge 
my  portion  of  our  inheritance.  I  declared 
it  as  my  intention  to  go  to  my  Uncle  Flori- 
mond  in  Paris  as  soon  as  the  affair  was 
finally  settled ;  and  Ripley  agreed  that  that 
would  be  the  appropriate  thing  for  me  to  do 
— "  Though,  of  course,"  he  added,  "  I  shall 
feel  awfully  cut  up  at  our  separation.  Still, 
it's  undoubtedly  the  thing  for  you  to  do.  It's 
what  I  would  do  if  I  were  in  your  place. 
And,  O,  Scottie!  Greg,  won't  old  Finkelstein 
and  your  other  Hebrew  friends  open  their 
eyes  ? " 

"  Won't  they,  though  !  "  I  returned,  revel- 
ing in  fancy  over  their  astonishment  and 
their  increased  respect  for  me,  after  I  should 
have  explained  to  them  my  sudden  and  tre- 
mendous rise  in  the  world.  But  in  this  par- 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  149 

ticular  I  was  destined  to  disappointment; 
for  when,  as  soon  as  Ripley  had  gone  home, 
I  joined  Mr.  Finkelstein  in  the  parlor,  and 
conveyed  to  him  the  joyful  information,  he, 
having  heard  me  through  without  any  sign 
of  especial  wonder,  remarked  :  — 

"  Vail,  Kraikory,  I  suppose  you  vant  me  to 
conkraitulate  you,  hey  ?  Vail,  it's  a  graind 
ting  to  be  rich,  Kraikory,  and  no  mistake 
about  it.  And  I  shust  tell  you  dis,  Kraik- 
ory :  dere  ain't  nobody  in  de  United  States 
of  America  vould  be  glaidder  if  ainy  goot 
luck  haippened  to  you,  as  I  vould  be.  I'm 
awful  fond  of  you,  Kraikory,  and  dere  ain't 
nodings  what  I  vant  more  as  to  see  you 
haippy  and  prosperous.  De  only  trouble  is, 
Kraikory,  dot  I  ain't  so  sure  as  dis  vould  be 
such  awful  goot  luck,  aifter  all.  For,  to  tell 
you  de  honest  troot,  Kraikory,  I  don't  like 
de  vay  you  take  it.  No,  I  aictually  don't. 
You're  too  stuck-up  and  prout  about  it, 
Kraikory;  and  I  hate  to  see  you  stuck-up 
and  prout.  It  ain't  nice  to  be  prout,  Kraik- 


I5O  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

ory;  it  ain't  what  you  call  manly;  and  I 
simply  hate  to  see  you  do  ainydings  what 
ain't  nice  and  manly —  I'm  so  fond  of  you, 
don't  you  understand?  Den,  ainyhow,  Kraik- 
ory,  de  Bible  says  dot  prite  goes  before  de- 
struction, and  a  howty  spirit  before  a  fall ; 
and  dot's  a  solemn  faict,  Kraikory ;  dey  do, 
shust  as  sure  as  you're  alife.  De  Bible's 
shust  exaictly  right,  Kraikory ;  you  can  bet 
ten  tousand  tollars  on  it.  Why,  I  myself,  I 
seen  hundreds  of  fellers  get  stuck-up  and 
prout  already;  and  den  de  first  ting  dey 
knew,  dey  bust  all  to  pieces  like  a  goot-for- 
nodings  boiler.  Yes,  siree,  if  I  was  as  prout 
as  you  are,  Kraikory,  I'd  feel  afraid. 

"  No,  Kraikory,  I  don't  like  de  vay  you 
take  it,  and  I  really  tink  if  you  get  dis  money 
what  you're  talking  about,  I  really  tink  it'll 
spoil  you,  Kraikory  ;  and  dot's  why  I  cain't 
conkraitulate  you  de  vay  you  vant  me  to. 
You  ain't  been  like  yourself  for  a  pretty  long 
while  now  already,  Kraikory.  I  ain't  said 
nodings  about  it ;  but  I  seen  it  all  de  same ; 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 


and  Solly  seen  it,  and  Heddie,  she  seen  it, 
and  Mr.  Flisch  seen  it,  and  Henrietta  seen 
it,  and  we  all  seen  it,  and  we  all  felt  simply 
fearful  about  it.  And  now  I  tink  it  shust 
needs  dis  money  to  spoil  you  altogedder. 
I  hate  to  say  ainydings  to  hurt  your  feelings, 
Kraikory,  but  dot's  my  honest  opinion  ;  and 
me  and  you,  we'd  oughter  be  goot  enough 
friends  to  talk  right  out  to  each  udder  like 
fader  and  son.  De  faict  is,  Kraikory,  I've 
loafed  you  shust  exaictly  de  same  as  if  we 
was  fader  and  son  ;  and  dot's  de  reason  it 
makes  me  feel  so  awful  to  see  you  get  stuck- 
up  and  prout.  But  you  was  a  goot  boy 
down  deep,  Kraikory,  and  I  guess  you'll 
turn  out  all  right  in  de  end,  if  dis  here  money 
don't  spoil  you.  You  got  a  little  foolishness 
about  you,  which  is  necheral  to  your  age. 
When  I  was  your  age  I  was  a  big  fool,  too. 
"  Vail,  and  so,  shust  as  soon  as  de  mait- 
ter's  settled,  you're  going  to  Europe,  are 
you,  to  live  mit  your  Uncle  Florimond  in 
Pairis  ?  Vail,  dot's  all  right,  Kraikory,  if 


152  PRIDE    AND   A    FALL. 

you  like  to  do  it.  I  ain't  got  no  pusiness 
to  make  ainy  obshections,  dot's  sure.  All 
I  got  to  say,  Kraikory,  is  dis :  Your  Uncle 
Florimond,  he  may  be  an  awful  fine  feller, 
and  I  guess  likely  he  is  ;  but  I  don't  know 
as  he's  aifer  done  much  of  ainydings  for 
you;  and  if  I  was  in  your  place,  I'd  feel 
sorter  sorry  to  stop  my  education,  and  leaf 
de  old  friends  what  I  was  certain  of,  and  go 
to  a  new  friend  what  I  hadn't  naifer  tried  ; 
dot's  all.  Vail,  if  you  vant  to  go,  I  suppose 
you'll  go ;  and  Solly  and  me  and  Henrietta 
and  dot  little  kirl  ofer  by  Mr.  Flisch,  vail, 
we'll  have  to  get  along  mitout  you  de  best 
vay  we  can.  I  guess  dot  little  Rosie,  I 
guess  she'll  feel  pretty  baid  about  it,  Kraik- 
ory; but  I  don't  suppose  dot'lPmake  much 
difference  to  you,  to  shush  by  de  vay  you 
talk.  Poor  little  ting !  She's  awful  fond  of 
you,  Kraikory,  and  I  guess  she'll  feel  pretty 
lonesome  aifter  you've  gone  avay.  Oh ! 
vail,  I  suppose  she  von't  die  of  it.  Dere 
are  plenty  udder  young  fellers  in  dis  vorld, 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  153 

and  I  don't  suppose  she'll  cry  herself  to 
dead  for  you.  All  de  same,  I  guess  she'll 
feel  pretty  baid  first  off ;  but  dot's  your 
business,  and  not  mine. 

"  Vail,  let  me  see.  To-day's  Saturday ; 
and  you're  going  to  Nawvich  Monday  night. 
Vail,  dot's  all  right.  I  ain't  got  nodings  to 
say  against  dot.  I  shust  give  you  vun  little 
piece  of  advice,  dough,  Kraikory,  and  dot  is 
dis :  If  I  was  in  your  place,  I  vouldn't  feel 
too  awful  sure  of  dis  here  money,  until  I'd 
aictually  got  hold  of  it,  for  fear  I  might  be 
disappointed.  Dere's  a  proverp  which  goes, 
'  Dere's  a  great  mainy  slips  between  de  cup 
and  de  lips,'  Kraikory ;  and  dot's  a  solemn 
faict,  which  I  advice  you  to  remember." 

This  sermon  of  Mr.  Finkelstein's  made 
me  feel  very  sore  indeed ;  but  I  felt  sorer 
still  next  day,  when  Rosalind  —  whom  I 
was  calling  upon,  and  to  whom  I  had  just 
communicated  the  momentous  news  —  when 
Rosalind,  with  flushed  cheeks  and  flashing 
eyes,  assailed  me  thus  :  — 


154  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

"  O,  Gregory  Brace  !  Oh  !  shame  on  you. 
Oh !  I  don't  know  you.  I  can't  believe  it's 
you.  I  can't  believe  it's  the  same  boy  at  all. 
Such  selfishness  !  Such  ingratitude!  Such 
a  proud  hard  heart !  It's  been  as  much  as 
anyone  could  do  to  put  up  with  you  for  ever 
and  ever  so  long,  you've  been  so  vain  and 
so  conceited  and  everything;  but  this  just 
caps  the  climax.  Oh !  think  of  poor  Mr. 
Finkelstein.  He's  been  so  good  and  gen- 
erous to  you,  and  so  fond  of  you ;  and  he's 
sent  you  to  school  and  college,  and  given 
you  every  advantage  he  possibly  could  ;  and 
you  owe  him  so  much,  and  you're  under 
such  great  obligations  to  him,  for  he  took 
you  right  out  of  the  streets,  and  gave  you  a 
home,  and  made  a  son  of  you,  instead  of  a 
servant  —  yes,  he  did  —  and  now  the  very 
first  thing  that  you  propose  to  do,  as  soon 
as  you're  able  to,  is  to  leave  him,  to  abandon 
him  —  oh!  you  ungrateful  thing — and  go 
to  your  horrid  old  French  uncle,  who,  I 
don't  believe  cares  the  snap  of  his  finger  for 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  157 

you.  He  is  horrid,  too ;  and  I  hope  he'll 
just  treat  you  horribly,  just  to  punish  you. 
And  I  hope  that  Arthur  Ripley  is  mistaken, 
and  that  you  won't  get  a  single  penny  from 
your  Uncle  Peter,  but  just  a  good  whipping 
to  take  you  down ;  and  I  hope  you'll  have  to 
come  back  to  Mr.  Finkelstein,  and  humbly 
beg  his  pardon ;  yes,  I  do,  with  all  my  heart 
and  soul.  I'd  just  like  to  see  you  have  to 
come  down  from  your  high  horse  and  eat 
humble  pie  for  a  while ;  yes,  I  would.  The 
idea !  Desert  Mr.  Finkelstein  !  You,  who 
might  have  been  begging  in  the  streets,  ex- 
cept for  him !  I  should  think  you'd  be 
ashamed  to  look  me  in  the  face.  Oh!  you 
mean  to  give  him  a  good  round  sum  of 
money,  do  you,  to  pay  him  for  what  he's 
done  for  you?  Why,  how  very  liberal  and 
noble  you  are,  to  be  sure  !  As  though  money 
could  pay  for  what  Mr.  Finkelstein  has  done 
for  you !  As  though  money  were  what  he 
wants  from  you,  and  not  love  and  affection ! 
O,  Gregory !  you've  changed  so  that  I  don't 


158  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

know  you,  and  I  don't  like  you  at  all  any 
more,  and  I  don't  care  to  be  friends  with 
you  any  more,  and  you  needn't  come  to  see 
me  any  more.  There ! " 

Yes,  I  felt  very  sore  and  very  angry. 
What  Rosalind  said  only  served  to  exasper- 
ate and  embitter  me,  and  to  make  me  grit 
my  teeth,  and  pursue  all  the  more  doggedly 
my  own  selfish  purpose. 

Well,  on  Monday  night,  according  to  our 
agreement,  Ripley  and  I  set  out  for  Nor- 
wich, passengers  aboard  the  very  same  steam- 
boat, the  City  of  Lawrence,  that  I  had  come 
to  New  York  by,  three  years  before ;  and 
bright  and  early  Tuesday  morning  we 
reached  our  destination. 

I  only  wish  I  could  spare  a  page  to  tell 
you  something  of  the  emotions  that  I  felt  as 
we  came  in  sight  of  the  dingy  old  town.  It 
had  not  changed  the  least  bit  in  the  world ; 
it  was  like  the  face  of  an  old  familiar  friend ; 
it  called  up  before  me  my  own  self  of  former 
years  ;  it  brought  a  thousand  memories  surg- 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  159 

ing  upon  me,  and  filled  my  heart  with  a 
strong,  unutterable  melancholy,  that  was  yet 
somehow  indescribably  sweet  and  tender. 

But  Ripley  and  I  had  no  time  for  the  in- 
dulgence of  sentiment.  "  Now,  then,  where 's 
the  Court  House  ?  Where's  the  Probate 
Office  ?  "  he  demanded  as  soon  as  we  had  set 
foot  upon  the  dry  land.  "  We  must  pitch 
right  in,  without  losing  a  moment." 

So  I  led  him  to  the  Probate  Court ;  and 
there  he  "  pitched  right  in  "  with  a  venge- 
ance, examining  the  indices  to  lots  of  big 
written  books  of  records,  while  I  stood  by  to 
hand  them  to  him,  and  to  put  them  back 
in  their  places  when  he  had  finished  with 
them  —  until,  after  an  hour  or  so,  he  an- 
nounced, "  Well,  Greg,  you're  right.  She 
left  no  will." 

Then  he  continued :  "  Now  we  must  find 
out  the  date  upon  which  Peter  took  out  his 
Letters  of  Administration,  and  also  whether 
he  had  himself  constituted  your  guardian,  as 
he  most  likely  did ;  and  then  we'll  have  all 


I6O  PRIDE   AND   A   FALL. 

the  facts  we,  need  to  establish  your  claims, 
and  put  you  in  possession." 

Thereupon  he  attacked  another  set  of  big 
written  volumes,  and  with  these  he  was  busy 
as  long  as  two  hours  more.  In  the  end, 
"  By  Jingo,  Greg,"  he  cried,  "here's  a  state 
of  things!  He  didn't  take  out  any  Letters 
of  Administration  at  all." 

"  Well,"  I  queried,  not  understanding  the 
meaning  of  this  circumstance, "  what  of  that  ? 
What  does  that  signify  ?  " 

"  Why,  that  signifies  an  even  darker  and 
more  systematic  piece  of  fraud  than  I  had 
suspected.  In  order  to  cheat  you  out  of 
your  share,  he  failed  to  comply  with  the  law. 
He  didn't  go  through  the  proper  formalities 
to  get  control  of  her  property,  but  simply 
took  possession  of  it  without  authority. 
And  now  we've  got  him  completely  at  our 
mercy.  We  could  prosecute  him  criminally, 
if  we  liked.  We  could  send  him  to  State 
Prison.  Oh !  won't  we  make  him  hop  ?  I 
say,  Greg,  do  you  want  to  have  some  fun  ? " 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  l6l 

"  How  ?     What  way  ?  " 

"  Well,  sir,  if  you  want  to  have  some  fun, 
I'll  tell  you  what  let's  do.  Let's  go  call  on 
your  Uncle  Peter,  and  confront  him  with 
this  little  piece  of  villainy,  and  politely  ask 
him  to  explain  it :  and  then  see  him  squirm. 
It'll  sort  of  square  accounts  with  him  for  the 
number  of  times  he's  given  you  a  flogging." 

"  O,  no !  I  —  I  guess  we'd  better  not,"  I 
demurred,  faltering  at  the  prospect  of  a  per- 
sonal encounter  with  my  redoubtable  relative. 

But,  man  alive,  you  have  nothing  to  fear. 
We've  got  the  whip-hand  of  him.  Just 
think,  we  can  threaten  him  with  criminal 
prosecution.  Oh !  come  on.  It'll  be  the 
jolliest  kind  of  a  lark." 

Well,  I  allowed  myself  to  be  persuaded ; 
and  we  set  forth  for  Uncle  Peter's  office,  Rip- 
ley  all  agog  for  excitement,  and  I  trying  not 
to  appear  afraid.  But  Uncle  Peter  wasn't  in. 
An  oldish  man,  who  seemed  to  be  in  charge, 
informed  us  that  the  Jedge  had  got  a  touch 
of  the  rheumatiz,  and  was  stayin'  hum. 


1 62  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

"  Never  mind,"  said  Ripley  to  me ;  "  we'll 
visit  him  at  his  home,  we'll  beard  him  in  his 
den.  Come  along  !  " 

I  tried  to  beg  off,  but  Rip  insisted ;  and 
I  weakly  gave  in. 

If  I  had  been  stirred  by  strong  emotions 
at  the  sight  of  Norwich  City,  conceive  how 
much  more  deeply  I  was  stirred  when  we 
reached  Norwich  Town  —  when  I  saw  our 
old  house  peeping  out  from  among  the  great 
elm-trees  that  embosomed  it  —  when  I  ac- 
tually stood  upon  its  doorstep,  with  my  hand 
upon  the  old  brass  knocker !  A  strange  serv- 
ant girl  opened  the  door,  and  to  my  request 
to  see  Judge  Brace,  replied,  "  The  Jedge  is 
sick  in  his  room."  "  That  doesn't  matter," 
I  explained.  "  You  know,  I  am  his  nephew. 
Tell  him  his  nephew  Gregory  wants  to  see 
him."  And  I  marched  boldly  through  the 
hall  —  where  the  same  tall  eight-day  clock, 
with  its  silver  face  that  showed  the  phases 
of  the  moon,  was  ticking  just  as  it  had  used 
to  tick  as  long  ago  as  I  could  remember  — 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  163 

and  into  the  parlor,  Ripley  following.  I  say 
I  marched  in  boldly,  yet  I  was  really  fright- 
ened half  to  death,  as  the  moment  of  a  face- 
to-face  meeting  with  my  terrible  uncle  be- 
came so  imminent.  There  in  the  parlor 
stood  the  piano  upon  which  my  grandmother 
had  labored  so  patiently  to  teach  me  to  play. 
There  hung  the  oil  portrait  of  her,  in  her 
robe  of  cream-colored  silk,  taken  when  she 
was  a  beautiful  young  girl,  and  there,  oppo- 
site it,  above  the  fireplace,  the  companion- 
picture  of  my  Uncle  Florimond,  in  his  lieu- 
tenant's uniform,  with  his  sword  and  his 
crimson  sash.  Ripley  started  back  a  little 
when  he  saw  this  painting,  and  cried,  "  For 
mercy's  sake,  Greg,  who  is  it?  I  never  saw 
anything  like  it.  The  same  eyes,  nose, 
mouth,  chin,  everything.  It's  you  all  over" 
—  thus  confirming  what  my  grandmother 
used  to  tell  me :  "  Gregory,  thou  art  his 
living  image."  The  room  was  haunted  by 
a  myriad  dear  associations.  I  forgot  the 
errand  that  had  brought  me  there ;  I  forgot 


164  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

my  fear  of  meeting  Uncle  Peter  ;  I  forgot  all 
of  the  recent  past,  and  was  carried  back  to 
the  happiest  days  of  my  childhood ;  and  my 
heart  just  swelled,  and  thrilled,  and  ached. 
But  next  instant  it  gave  a  great  spasmodic 
leap,  and  stood  still  for  a  second,  and  then 
began  to  gallop  ahead  like  mad,  while  a  per- 
spiration broke  out  over  my  forehead;  for 
the  maid-servant  entered,  and  said  "  Please 
walk  upstairs  to  the  Jedge's  room."  I  really 
thought  I  should  faint.  It  was  as  much  as 
I  could  do  to  get  my  breath.  My  knees 
knocked  together.  My  hands  shook  like 
those  of  an  aged  palsy-stricken  man.  How- 
ever, there  was  no  such  thing  as  backing 
out  at  this  late  date ;  so  I  screwed  my  cour- 
age to  the  sticking  place,  and  led  Ripley  up- 
stairs to  Uncle  Peter's  room. 

Uncle  Peter  was  seated  in  an  arm-chair, 
with  his  legs,  wrapped  in  a  comforter, 
stretched  out  on  another  chair  in  front  of 
him.  He  never  so  much  as  said  how-d'-ye- 
do  ?  or  anything ;  but  at  once,  scowling  at  us, 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  165 

asked  in  his  gruffest  voice,  "  Well,  what  do 
you  want  ? " 

I  was  so  afraid  and  so  abashed  that  I 
could  hardly  speak ;  but  I  did  contrive  to 
point  at  Ripley,  and  gasp,  "  He  —  he'll  tell 
you." 

"  Well,"  snapped  Uncle  Peter,  turning  to 
my  spokesman,  "  go  on.  State  your  business." 

"  Well,  sir,"  began  Rip  —  and  O,  me  !  as  I 
listened  to  him,  didn't  my  wonder  at  his  wis- 
dom, and  my  admiration  of  his  eloquence, 
mount  up  a  peg  ?  —  "  well,  sir,  our  business 
is  very  simple,  and  can  be  stated  in  a  very 
few  words.  The  amount  of  it  is  simply  this. 
My  friend  Gregory  Brace,  being  the  only 
child  of  Edward  Brace,  deceased,  who  was 
a  son  of  your  mother,  Aurore  Brace,  de- 
ceased, is,  equally  with  yourself,  the  heir  and 
next-of-kin  of  the  said  decedent,  and  would, 
in  the  event  of  her  having  died  intestate, 
divide  share  and  share  alike  with  you  what- 
ever property  she  left.  Now,  sir,  we  have 
caused  a  search  to  be  made  in  the  records 


1 66  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

of  the  Probate  Court  of  this  County,  and  we 
find  that  the  said  decedent  did  in  fact  die 
intestate.  It,  therefore,  became  your  duty  to 
petition  for  Letters  of  Administration  upon 
her  estate ;  to  cite  Gregory  Brace  to  show 
cause  why  such  Letters  should  not  be  issued ; 
to  cause  a  guardian  ad  litem  to  be  appointed 
to  act  for  him  in  the  proceedings  ;  to  cause 
a  permanent  guardian  to  be  appointed  for 
him  after  the  issuance  of  said  Letters  ;  and 
then  to  apply  the  rents,  profits,  and  income 
of  one  undivided  half  of  the  estate  of  said 
decedent  to  his  support,  maintenance  and 
education,  allowing  what  excess  there  might 
be  to  accrue  to  his  benefit.  Well,  sir,  exam- 
ination proves  that  you  have  performed  none 
of  these  duties ;  that  you  have  illegally  and 
without  warrant  or  authority  possessed  your- 
self of  the  whole  of  said  estate,  thereby  com- 
mitting a  fraud  upon  the  said  Gregory  Brace, 
and  violating  the  statutes  in  such  case  made 
and  provided.  And  now,  sir,  we  have  come 
here  to  give  you  notice  that  it  is  our  inten- 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  1 67 

tion  to  put  this  matter  at  once  into  the  hands 
of  an  attorney,  with  directions  that  he  pro- 
ceed against  you,  both  criminally  and  civilly." 

Uncle  Peter  heard  Ripley  through  with- 
out interrupting,  though  an  ugly  smile  flick- 
ered about  his  lips.  When  Rip  had  done, 
he  lay  back  in  his  chair,  and  gave  a  loud 
harsh  laugh.  Then  he  drew  a  long,  mock- 
respectful  face,  and  in  a  very  dry,  sarcastic 
manner  spoke  as  follows :  — 

"  Why,  my  young  friend,  you  talk  like 
a  book.  And  what  profound  and  varied 
knowledge  of  the  law  you  do  possess,  to 
be  sure !  Why,  I  must  congratulate  my 
nephew  upon  having  found  such  an  able 
and  sagacious  advocate.  And  really,  I  can- 
not see  the  necessity  of  your  calling  in  the 
services  of  an  attorney,  for  a  person  of  your 
distinguished  calibre  ought  certainly  to  be 
equal  to  conducting  this  dual  prosecution, 
both  civil  and  criminal,  single-handed  .  .  . 
My  sakes  alive  !  "  he  cried,  with  a  sudden 
change  of  tone  and  bearing.  "  Do  you 


1 68  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

know  what  I've  a  great  mind  to  do  with 
you  and  your  client,  my  fine  young  fellow  ? 
I've  a  great  mind  to  cane  you  both  within 
an  inch  of  your  precious  lives,  and  send  you 
skulking  away,  with  your  tails  between  your 
legs,  like  two  whipped  puppies.  But,  bless 
me,  no !  You're  neither  of  you  worth  the 
trouble.  So  I'll  spare  my  rod,  and  spoil 
your  fancy,  by  giving  you  a  small  measure 
of  information.  Now,  then,  pray  tell  me, 
Mr.  Advocate,  what  is  your  valuation  of 
the  property  which  the  '  said  decedent ' 
left  ?  " 

Ripley,  nothing  daunted,  answered,  "  At 
least  a  hundred  thousand  dollars." 

"  At  least  a  hundred  thousand  dollars,"  re- 
peated Uncle  Peter ;  "  well,  that's  a  pretty 
sum.  Well,  now,  what  would  you  say,  my 
learned  friend,  if  I  should  tell  you  that  she 
didn't  leave  a  penny  ?  " 

"  I  should  say  it  was  very  extraordinary, 
and  that  I  couldn't  believe  it.  She  was  the 
widow  of  a  wealthy  man.  She  lived  in  good 


PRIDE    AND    A    FALL.  169 

style.  It  stands  to  reason  that  she  couldn't 
have  died  penniless." 

"  And  so  it  does  ;  it  stands  to  reason,  as 
you  say ;  and  yet  penniless  she  was  when 
she  died,  and  penniless  she  had  been  for 
ten  years  before ;  and  if  she  lived  in  good 
style,  it  was  because  I  paid  the  bills ;  and 
if  this  young  cub,  my  nephew,  wore  good 
clothes  and  ate  good  dinners,  it  was  my 
charity  he  had  to  thank.  Little  by,  little, 
stick  by  stick,  my  mother  disposed  of  all 
the  property  her  husband  left  her,  selling 
the  bulk  of  it  to  me,  and  sending  the  pro- 
ceeds to  France,  to  help  to  reconstruct  the 
fortunes  of  her  family  there,  who  were 
ruined  by  the  revolution.  She  was  a  pau- 
per when  she  died  ;  and  that's  why  I  took  out 
no  Letters  of  Administration  —  because  there 
was  nothing  to  administrate  upon.  .  .  . 
There,  now  I've  told  you  more  than  I  was 
under  any  obligation  to ;  and  now,  both  of 
you,  get  out !" 

"  Come,  Greg,"  said  Rip,  "  let's  go." 


I/O  PRIDE    AND    A    FALL. 

We  went.  Out  of  doors,  I  began,  "  Well, 
Rip"- 

"  Well,  Greg,"  Rip  interrupted,  "  we've 
been  on  a  fool's  errand,  a  wild-goose  chase, 
and  the  less  said  about  it  the  better." 

"  And  I  —  I'm  not  rich,  after  all  ?  " 

"  That's  what's  the  matter,  Greg.  If  she 
didn't  leave  any  property  —  you  see,  we  took 
it  for  granted  that  she  did  —  why,  there's 
nothing  for  you  to  inherit.  It's  too  bad, 
old  fellow ;  but  then,  you're  no  worse  off 
than  you  were  in  the  beginning.  Anyhow, 
there's  no  use  crying  over  spilt  milk.  Come 
on  ;  let's  take  the  afternoon  train  to  New 
York." 

So  my  fine  castle  in  the  air  had  fallen  to 
pieces  like  a  house  of  cards.  I  tell  you,  it 
was  a  mighty  crest-fallen  young  gentleman, 
in  a  very  humble  frame  of  mind,  who  sat 
next  to  Arthur  Ripley  that  afternoon  in  the 
train  that  was  speeding  to  New  York. 


CHAPTER   VI. 
MY  UNCLE  PLORIMOND. 

YES,  indeed,  it  was  a  very  crest-fallen 
youth  who  accompanied  Arthur  Ripley  back 
to  New  York  that  bright  summer  afternoon, 
and  who  toward  bed-time  that  evening  stole 
quietly  into  Mr.  Finkelstein's  shop.  It  was 
hard  work  under  the  circumstances  to  re- 
turn to  Mr.  Finkelstein's.  I  had  to  swallow 
my  pride  in  doing  so,  and  it  proved  to  be 
an  exceedingly  unpalatable  dose.  I  had 
expected  to  return  a  young  prince,  in 
princely  style,  to  dazzle  my  plebeian  friends 
with  my  magnificence,  and  overwhelm  them 
with  my  bounteous  generosity;  and  now, 
in  point  of  fact,  I  came  back  poorer  than 
I  had  gone  away,  a  beggar  and  a  dependent, 
one  who  would  be  homeless  and  penniless  if 

171 


172  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

they  should  refuse  to  take  him  in.  It  was 
a  dreadful  come-down.  I  think,  if  there  had 
been  anywhere  else  for  me  to  go,  I  should 
never  have  returned  to  Mr.  Finkelstein's  at 
all,  it  mortified  my  vanity  so  cruelly  to  have 
to  do  it.  I  felt  as  though  I  should  like  to 
seek  out  some  obscure  hiding-place  in  the 
remotest  quarter  of  the  world,  and  bury  my- 
self there  forever  from  the  sight  of  men. 
"O,  Rip!"  I  cried,  "I  should  just  like  to 
bag  my  head." 

Of  course,  as  I  opened  the  shop  door,  the 
bell  above  it  must  needs  tinkle ;  and  in 
response  to  this  summons  Mr.  Finkelstein 
himself  issued  from  the  parlor. 

"  What,  Kraikory  ! "  he  exclaimed  at  sight 
of  me.  "  Back  so  soon  ?  Ach !  I  tought 
it  was  a  customer.  Vail,  it's  you  yourself, 
and  no  mistake  about  it." 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  replied,  "we  came  back  on 
the  train  this  afternoon." 

"  Ach,  so  ?  You  came  back  on  de  train 
dis  aifternoon  ?  Vail,  vail,  valk  in,  set 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  173 

down,  make  yourself  to  home.  Vail,  Kraik- 
ory,  I'm  real  glaid  to  see  you.  Vail,  it's  all 
right,  I  suppose  ?  You  got  de  money,  hey  ? 
Vail,  was  it  more  or  less  as  you  expected  ? 
Was  it  fifty  tousand,  or  a  hundred,  or 
maybe  only  terventy-fife  ?  Vail,  set  down 
and  tell  me  all  about  it." 

"N-no,  sir,"  I  began,  rather  tremulously; 
"  it  —  we  —  there  —  there  was  a  mistake. 
She  —  I  mean  to  say  my  grandmother  —  she 
didn't  leave  any  money,  after  all.  She  didn't 
have  any  to  leave.  She  was  quite  poor,  in- 
stead of  rich,  and  —  and  my  Uncle  Peter,  he 
supported  her.  He  owned  the  house  and 
everything.  He  had  bought  it  from  her, 
and  she  had  sent  the  money  to  France.  So  — 
I  —  that  is  —  you  see  "  —  I  broke  down.  I 
could  get  no  further. 

"  Ach,  dere,  dere,  Kraikory,"  cried  Mr. 
Finkelstein,  as  my  emotion  betrayed  itself, 
and  he  laid  his  hand  caressingly  upon  my 
shoulder ;  "  dere,  dere,  don't  you  go  feel  baid 
about  it,  my  dear  little  poy."  Then  he 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 


caught  himself  up.  "  Excuse  me,  Kraikory  ; 
I  didn't  mean  to  call  you  a  little  poy  ;  I  for- 
got. But  don't  you  go  feel  baid  about  it,  all 
de  same.  You  ain't  no  vorse  off  as  you  was 
before  already.  Put  it  down  to  experience, 
Kraikory,  sharsh  it  to  experience.  It's  all 
right.  You  got  a  comfortable  home  here  by 
me.  You  needn't  feel  so  awful  about  it. 
Come,  sheer  up,  Kraikory.  Don't  tink  about 
it  no  more.  Come  along  inside  mit  me,  and 
Henrietta  will  get  you  somedings  to  eat. 
We  ain't  got  no  faitted  caif  to  kill  in  your 
honor,  Kraikory,  but  we  got  some  of  de  fin- 
est liver  sowsage  in  de  United  States  of 
America;  and  ainyhow,  Kraikory,  veal  is  a 
fearful  dry  meat.  Ach,  dere,  dere,  for  mercy's 
sake,  don't  you  feel  baid.  I  get  off  a  shoke 
shust  on  purpose  to  make  you  laif,  and  you 
don't  naifer  notice  it.  Ach,  Kraikory,  don't 
feel  baid.  I  simply  hate  to  see  you  feel 
baid,  Kraikory  ;  I  simply  cain't  staind  it.  I 
give  ten  tousand  tollars  right  out  of  my  own 
pocket  sooner  as  see  you  feel  baid,  Kraikory  ; 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  175 

I'm  so  fond  of  you,  don't  you  under- 
stand ?  " 

My  heart  melted  all  at  once  like  ice  in 
sunshine.  Tears  sprang  to  my  eyes.  "  Oh  ! 
my  dear,  dear  Mr.  Finkelstein,"  I  sobbed, 
"you  are  so  good  to  me.  Oh!  can  —  can 
you  ever  —  for  —  forgive  the  —  the  way  I've 
acted  ?  I  —  I'm  —  I'm  so  sorry  for  it." 

"  My  kracious,  Kraikory,  don't  talk  like 
dot.  If  you  talk  like  dot,  you  make  me  aict 
so  foolish  I  be  ashamed  to  show  my  face. 
You  make  me  cry  like  a  raikular  old  voman, 
Kraikory ;  you  aictually  vill.  Ach,  dere  I 
go.  Ach,  my  kracious !  Ach !  I  cain't 
help  it.  Ach,  what  —  what  an  old  fool  I 

am Kraikory  —  my  boy — my  son  — 

come  here,  Kraikory  —  come  here  to  me. 
O,  Kraikory !  I  loaf  you  like  a  fader.  O, 
Kraikory !  you  know  what  I  tought  ?  I 
tought  I  loast  you  foraifer,  Kraikory.  O, 
Kraikory !  I'm  so  glaid  to  haif  you  back. 
Ach,  Kraikory,  God  is  good."  The  tears 
rolled  downward  from  his  dear  old  eyes,  and 


I  76  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

pattered  like  rain-drops  upon  my  cheeks. 
He  had  clasped  me  in  his  arms. 

From  that  hour  I  took  up  my  old  place  at 
Mr.  Finkelstein's,  in  a  humbler,  healthier, 
and,  on  the  whole,  happier  frame  of  mind 
than  I  had  known  for  many  a  long  day  be- 
fore. My  heart  had  been  touched,  and  my 
conscience  smitten,  by  his  loving  kindness. 
I  was  sincerely  remorseful  for  the  ungrateful 
manner  in  which  I  had  behaved  toward  him, 
and  for  the  unworthy  sentiments  that  I  had 
cherished.  I  strove  honestly,  by  amending 
my  conduct,  to  do  what  I  could  in  the  way 
of  atonement. 

Incidentally,  moreover,  my  little  adventure 
had  brought  me  face  to  face  with  some  of 
the  naked  facts  of  life.  In  a  grim  and  vivid 
tableau  it  had  shown  me  what  a  helpless  and 
dependent  creature  I  was  ;  how  for  the  sheer 
necessities  of  food,  shelter  and  clothing  I 
must  rely  upon  the  charity  of  other  people. 
I  tried  now  to  make  myself  of  real  value  to 
my  patron,  of  real  use  in  the  shop  and  about 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  177 

the  house,  and  thus  in  some  measure  to  ren- 
der an  equivalent  for  what  he  did  for  me. 
Instead  of  going  off  afternoons  to  amuse 
myself  with  Ripley,  I  would  remain  at  home 
to  improve  such  chances  as  I  had  to  be  of 
service  to  Mr.  Finkelstein.  I  would  play  the 
hand-organ  for  him,  or  read  aloud  to  him, 
or  take  charge  of  the  shop,  while  he  slept,  or 
enjoyed  his  game  of  pinochle  with  Mr.  Flisch. 
And  in  my  moments  of  leisure  I  would  study 
a  dog-eared  fourth-hand  copy  of  Munson's 
Complete  Phonographer  that  I  had  bought; 
for  I  had  long  thought  that  I  should  like  to 
learn  short-hand,  and  had  even  devoted  a 
good  deal  of  time  to  mastering  the  rudiments 
of  that  art ;  and  I  fancied  that,  by  much  dili- 
gent practice  now,  I  might  hasten  forward 
the  day  when  I  should  be  able  to  earn  my 
own  livelihood,  and  thus  cease  to  be  a  burden 
upon  my  friends.  Indeed,  I  could  already 
write  as  many  as  sixty  words  a  minute  with 
perfect  ease. 

Mr.  Finkelstein  did  not  altogether  approve 


i;8  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

of  my  assiduous  industry,  and  used  to  warn 
me,  "  Look  out,  Kraikory !  It  don't  naifer 
pay  to  run  a  ting  into  de  ground  ;  it  aictually 
don't  You  study  so  hart,  your  head'll  get 
more  knowledge  inside  of  it  as  it  can  hold, 
and  den,  de  first  ting  you  know,  all  of  a  sud- 
den vun  day,  it'll  svell  up  and  bust.  Ainy- 
how,  Kraikory,  dere's  a  proverp  which  goes, 
'  All  vork  and  no  play  makes  Shack  a  dull 
poy ' ;  and  dot's  as  true  as  you're  alife, 
Kraikory;  it  aictually  does.  You  better 
knock  off  dis  aifternoon,  Kraikory,  and  go 
haif  some  fun.  It's  Saiturday,  ain't  it  ?  And 
dere's  a  maitinee,  hey  ?  Vail,  why  don't  you 
go  to  de  teayter ?  .  .  .  How?  You  study 
so  hart  becoase  you  vant  to  get  able  to  earn 
your  living  ?  Now  look  at  here,  Kraikory ; 
don't  you  talk  foolish.  I  got  plenty  money, 
ain't  I  ?  And  I  got  a  right  to  spend  my 
money  so  as  to  get  saitisfaiction  out  of  it, 
hey  ?  Vail,  now  look  at  here ;  dere  ain't  no 
vay  of  spending  my  money  what'll  give  me 
so  much  saitisfaiction  as  to  spend  it  to  make 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  179 

you  haippy  and  contented  ;  dot's  a  solemn 
faict.  You  needn't  vorry  about  earning  your 
living.  You  ain't  got  to  earn  it  for  a  great 
mainy  years  yet  already  —  not  till  you  get 
all  done  mit  your  education.  And  ainyhow, 
Kraikory,  you  do  earn  it.  You  mind  de 
store,  and  you  read  out  lout  to  me,  and  you 
keep  me  company ;  and,  my  kracious,  you're 
such  a  shenu-wine  musician,  Kraikory,  you 
got  such  a  graind  tailent  for  de  haind-organ, 
I  don't  know  how  I'd  get  along  midout 
you.  I  guess  I  haif  to  raise  your  sailary  next 
New  Year's." 

This  was  only  of  a  piece  with  Mr.  Fin- 
kelstein's  usual  kindness.  But  I  felt  that 
I  had  abused  his  kindness  in  the  past,  and  I 
was  determined  to  abuse  it  no  longer. 

I  say  I  was  happier  than  I  had  been  for  a 
long  while  before,  and  so  I  was.  I  was  hap- 
pier because  I  was  more  contented.  My 
disappointment  about  the  inheritance,  though 
keen  enough  at  the  moment,  did  not  last 
long.  As  Mr.  Finkelstein.  had  remarked,  I 


I  SO  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

was  no  worse  off  than  I  had  been  in  the 
first  place ;  and  then,  I  derived  a  good  deal 
of  consolation  from  remembering  what  Uncle 
Peter  had  told  me  —  that  the  money  had 
gone  to  reconstruct  the  splendor  of  our  house 
in  France.  My  disappointment  at  seeing 
my  meeting  with  Uncle  Florimond  again 
become  a  thing  of  the  indefinite  future,  was 
deeper  and  more  enduring.  "  Alas,"  I  sighed, 
with  a  heart  sick  for  hope  deferred,  "  it 
seems  as  though  I  was  never  going  to  be 
able  to  go  to  him  at  all."  And  I  gulped 
down  a  big  lump  that  had  gathered  in  my 
throat.  . 

Against  Rosalind  Earle  I  still  nursed 
some  foolish  resentment.  She  had  wished 
that  I  might  have  to  eat  humble  pie.  Well, 
her  wish  had  come  to  pass  ;  and  I  felt  almost 
as  though  it  were  her  fault  that  it  had  done 
so.  She  had  said  she  didn't  like  me  any 
more,  and  didn't  care  to  have  me  call  upon 
her  any  more.  I  took  her  at  her  word,  and 
staid  away,  regarding  myself  in  the  light  of 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  iSl 

a  much-abused  and  injured  person.  So  three 
or  four  weeks  elapsed,  and  she  and  I  never 
met.  Then  .  .  .  Toward  six  o'clock  one 
evening  I  was  seated  in  the  parlor,  poring 
over  my  Complete  Phonographer,  when  the 
door  from  the  shop  opened  with  a  creak, 
and  a  light  footstep  became  audible  behind 
my  chair.  The  next  instant  I  heard  Rosa- 
lind's voice,  low  and  gentle,  call  my  name. 

My  heart  began  to  flutter.  I  got  up  and 
turned  around,  and  saw  the  dear  little  girl 
standing  a  yard  distant  from  me,  with  her 
hand  extended  for  me  to  take,  and  with  her 
beautiful  dark  eyes  fixed  appealingly  upon 
my  face.  I  didn't  speak ;  and  I  pretended 
not  to  see  her  hand ;  and  I  just  stood  still 
there,  mute  and  pouting,  like  the  sulky  cox- 
comb and  simpleton  that  I  was. 

Rosalind  allowed  her  hand  to  drop  to  her 
side,  and  a  very  pained  look  came  over  her 
face ;  and  there  was  a  frog  in  her  voice,  as 
she  said,  "  O,  Gregory !  you  —  you  are  still 
angry  with  me." 


1 82  MY    UNCI.E    FLORIMOND. 

"  O,  no  !  I'm  not  angry  with  you,"  I  an- 
swered, but  in  an  offish  tone ;  and  that  was 
true ;  I  really  wasn't  angry  with  her  the  least 
bit  any  more.  All  my  anger  had  evaporated 
at  the  sight  of  her  face  and  the  sound  of  her 
voice.  But  I  didn't  know  how  to  unbend 
gracefully  and  without  loss  of  dignity. 

"  Then  —  then  why  haven't  you  been  to 
see  me  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  You  said  you  didn't  want  me  to  come  to 
see  you  any  more." 

"  But  I  didn't  mean  it.  You  must  have 
known  I  didn't  mean  it." 

"  But  you  said  it,  anyhow.  I  don't  care 
to  go  where  I'm  not  wanted.  When  people 
say  a  thing,  how  am  I  to  know  they  don't 
mean  it  ? " 

"  But  I  said  it  when  I  was  vexed.  And 
what  people  say  when  they're  vexed  —  other 
people  ought  not  to  count  it.  It  isn't  fair. 
And  really  and  truly,  Gregory,  I  didn't  mean 
it;  and  I'm  sorry  I  said  it;  and  I'm  sorry  I 
spoke  to  you  the  way  I  did ;  and  —  and 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  183 

that's  why  I've  come  here,  Gregory;  I've 
come  to  ask  your  pardon." 

"  Oh  !  certainly ;  don't  mention  it ;  no  apol- 
ogy's necessary,"  I  sa;d.  I  would  have  given 
anything  to  have  taken  her  in  my  arms,  and 
kissed  her,  and  begged  her  pardon ;  but  I 
was  too  stiff-necked  and  self-conscious. 

"  And  then,"  she  went  on,  "  after  you  came 
back  from  Norwich,  and  Mr.  Flisch  told  me 
what  Mr.  Finkelstein  had  told  him  —  about 
how  disappointed  you  had  been,  and  every- 
thing —  I  —  I  felt  so  sorry  for  you,  Gregory, 
and  so  sorry  that  I  had  spoken  to  you  that 
way ;  and  I  wanted  to  come  right  over,  and 
tell  you  I  didn't  mean  it,  and  beg  your  par- 
don, and  ask  you  to  make  up  with  me ;  but 
I  thought  maybe  you  mightn't  like  it,  and 
that  you  might  be  angry  with  me,  and  —  and 
not — not — I  don't  know;  but  anyway,  I 
didn't  come.  And  then  I  just  hoped  and 
hoped  all  the  time  that  maybe  you  would 
come  to  see  me ;  but  you  never  did.  And 
then  at  last  I  just  couldn't  wait  any  longer, 


184  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

I  felt  -so  guilty  and  sorry  and  everything; 
and  —  and  so  I  stopped  in  on  my  way  home 
today;  and,  O,  Gregory!  I  really  didn't 
mean  to  hurt  your  feelings,  and  I  hope  you'll 
forgive  me,  Gregory,  and  not  be  angry  with 
me  any  more." 

By  this  time  I  had  gone  up,  and  taken  her 
in  my  arms ;  and,  "  O,  Rosalind ! "  I  cried, 
"don't  talk  like  that.  You  —  you  make  me 
feel  so  ashamed.  You  —  you  humiliate  me 
so.  What  you  said  to  me  that  day  —  it  was 
just  right.  You  were  just  right,  and  I  was 
wrong.  And  I  deserved  to  have  you  talk  to 
me  ten  times  worse,  I  was  so  horrid  and  stuck- 
up  and  everything.  And  I  —  I'm  awfully 
sorry.  And  I've  wanted  —  I've  wanted  to 
go  and  see  you  all  the  time,  and  tell  you 
I  was  sorry;  only  —  only  I  don't  know — I 
suppose  I  was  too  proud.  And  I  just  hope 
that  you'll  forgive  me,  and  forgive  the  way 
I  acted  here  to-day  a  little  while  ago,  and  — 
O,  Rosalind !  I'm  so  glad  to  be  friends  with 
you  again." 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  185 

"  What !  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Finkelstein,  en- 
tering from  the  shop.  "  Hugging  and 
kissing  each  udder !  Vail,  my  kracious ! 
Vail,  if  I  aifer!  Vail,  dot  beats  de  deck! 
Oh !  you  needn't  take  no  notice  of  me.  You 
needn't  stop  on  my  account.  I  don't  mind 
it.  I  been  dere  myself  already,  when  I  was 
your  age.  You  needn't  bloosh  like  dot, 
Rosie;  dough  it's  mighty  becoming  to  you, 
dot's  a  faict.  And,  Kraikory,  you  needn't 
look  so  sheebish.  You  ain't  done  nodings  to 
be  ashamed  of.  And  I'm  awful  sorry  I  came 
in  shust  when  I  did,  and  inderrubded  you ; 
only  I  didn't  know  what  you  was  doing,  as 
you  haidn't  notified  me,  and  I  vanted  to 
speak  to  Kraikory  about  a  little  maitter  of 
business.  Dere's  an  old  feller  outside  dere  in 
de  store  what  cain't  talk  no  English ;  and  I 
guess  he  was  a  Frenchman;  so  I  tought  I'd 
get  Kraikory  to  come  along  and  aisk  him 
what  he  vants,  if  you  could  spare  him,  Rosie 
—  hey  ?  "  So  Rosalind  and  I  followed  Mr. 
Finkelstein  into  the  shop. 


1 86  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

A  tall,  thin,  and  very  poor-looking  old  man 
stood  before  the  counter,  resting  his  hands 
upon  it  —  small  and  well-shaped  hands,  but 
so  fleshless  that  you  could  have  counted  the 
bones  in  them,  and  across  which  the  blue, 
distended  veins  stretched  like  wires.  His 
stove-pipe  hat  was  worn  and  lustreless;  his 
black  frock  coat  was  threadbare,  and  whitish 
along  the  seams.  His  old-fashioned  stand- 
ing collar  was  frayed  at  the  edge  ;  and  a  red 
mark  on  each  side  of  his  neck,  beneath  his 
ears,  showed  that  the  frayed  edge  had  chafed 
his  skin.  His  face  was  colorless  and  ema- 
ciated ;  his  eyes,  sunken  deep  under  his 
brows,  had  a  weary,  sad,  half-frightened  look 
in  them  that  compelled  your  pity.  His 
moustache  and  imperial  were  as  white  as 
snow.  A  very  forlorn,  pathetic,  poor-looking 
old  man,  indeed.  Yet  there  was  also  some- 
thing refined,  dignified,  and  even  courtly  in 
his  appearance ;  and  I  thought  to  myself  that 
he  had  seen  better  days ;  and  my  heart 
ached  for  him.  It  was  with  an  unwonted 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  187 

gentleness  that  I  inquired :  "  You  are  French, 
Monsieur  ?  I  put  myself  at  your  service." 

His  sad  old  eyes  fixed  themselves  eagerly 
upon  mine,  and  in  a  quavering  old  voice  he 
answered,  "  Je  cherche  un  jeune  homme  qui 
sappelle  Gregoire  Brace  "  —  I  seek  a  young 
man  named  Gregory  Brace.  "  Oest  id  qu 
il  demeure?  "  —  It  is  here  that  he  lives  ? 

"  Mais  oui,  monsieur :  cest  moi"  —  it  is  I, 
I  said  ;  and  wondering  what  in  the  world 
he  could  want  with  me,  I  waited  for  him 
to  go  on. 

His  eyes  opened  a  little  wider,  and  a  light 
flashed  in  them.  He  seemed  to  be  strug- 
gling with  an  emotion  that  made  it  impossi- 
ble for  him  to  speak.  His  throat,  I  could 
see,  gave  two  or  three  convulsive  swallows. 
Then  his  lips  parted,  his  eyes  grew  dim  with 
tears,  and  very  huskily,  bending  forward,  he 
demanded,  "  Et — et  vous  ne  me  connaissez 
pas  ?  "  —  And  you  do  not  know  me  ? 

I  scanned  his  face  carefully.  I  could  not 
recognize  it.  I  shook  my  head.  "  Mais  non, 


1 88  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

monsieur;" — I  do  not  think  that  I  have 
ever  seen  you  before. 

"  No,  that  is  true.  But  I  hoped  that  you 
might  know  me,  nevertheless.  .  .  .  Gregory, 
it  is  I ;  it  is  thy  uncle  — de  la  Bourbonnaye." 
And  he  stretched  out  his  two  arms,  to  em- 
brace me. 

"What!  .  .  .  Thou!  .  .  .  My  — my 
Uncle  —  Florimond  !  .  .  .  Oh  !  "  I  gasped. 
My  heart  bounded  terribly.  My  head  swam. 
The  objects  round  about  began  to  dance  be- 
wilderingly  to  and  fro.  The  floor  under  my 
feet  rocked  like  the  deck  of  a  ship.  There 
was  a  loud  continuous  ringing  in  my  ears. 
.  .  .  But  still  I  saw  the  figure  of  that  sad  old 
man  standing  there  motionless,  with  arms 
outstretched  toward  me,  waiting.  A  thou- 
sand unutterable  emotions  were  battling  in 
my  heart ;  a  thousand  incoherent  thoughts 
were  racing  through  my  brain.  This  poor 
old  man  my  Uncle  Florimond  !  This  poor  old 
man —  in  threadbare  cloth  and  tattered  lin- 
en. .  .  .  Then  suddenly  an  impulse  mas- 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  IQI 

tered  me.  I  rushed  forward,  and  threw  my- 
self upon  his  breast,  and  —  like  a  schoolgirl 
—  fell  to  weeping. 

Well,  as  the  French  proverb  says,  every- 
thing comes  at  last  to  him  who  knows  how 
to  wait.  To  me  at  last  had  come  the  mo- 
ment for  which  I  had  waited  so  many  years  ; 
and  I  stood  face  to  face  with  my  Uncle  Flori- 
mond,  with  the  hero  of  my  imagination,  the 
Marquis  de  la  Bourbonnaye.  But  in  place 
of  the  rich  and  powerful  nobleman  whom  I 
had  dreamed  of,  the  dashing  soldier,  the 
brilliant  courtier,  I  found  the  poor  decrepit 
aged  man  whom  you  have  seen.  "  Thou 
knowest,  my  Gregory,"  he  explained  to  me 
by  and  by,  "  since  the  overthrow  of  the  legiti- 
mate monarchy  by  the  first  revolution,  our 
family  has  never  been  rich.  In  1792,  upon 
the  eve  of  the  Terror,  my  father  emigrated 
from  the  beautiful  France5  and  sought  refuge 
in  Sweden,  where  I  and  my  sister  were  born, 
and  where  he  remained  until  1815.  Upon 


I Q2  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

the  restoration  we  returned  to  our  father- 
land ;  but  our  chateaux  of  which  we  counted 
no  fewer  than  three,  had  been  burned,  our 
hotel  in  Paris  sacked,  our  wealth  confiscated 
and  dissipated,  by  those  barbarians,  those 
assassins,  those  incendiaries,  and  we  pos- 
sessed scarcely  even  the  wherewithal  to  live. 
It  was  for  that  that  we  consented  to  the  mis- 
alliance made  by  our  Aurore  in  espousing 
thy  grandfather,  Philip  Brace.  American 
and  bourgeois  that  he  was,  in  admitting  him 
to  our  connection,  our  family  suffered  the 
first  disgrace  of  its  history.  Yet  without 
dowry,  my  sister  could  never  have  married 
her  equal  in  France,  and  would  most  likely 
have  become  a  nun.  But  that  excellent 
Brace,  he  loved  her  so  much,  her  station  was 
so  high,  his  own  so  low,  he  was  happy  to 
obtain  her  hand  at  any  terms.  She,  too, 
reciprocated  his  affection ;  he  was  indeed  a 
fine  fellow;  and  the  marriage  was  accom- 
plished. ...  It  is  now  some  ten  years  since, 
by  the  goodness  of  my  beloved  sister,  I  was 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  193 

enabled  to  amass  a  sufficient  sum  to  purchase 
for  myself  an  annuity  of  six  thousand  francs 
as  a  provision  for  my  age.  But  behold,  the 
other  day  —  it  is  now  about  two  months  ago, 
perhaps  —  the  annuity  company  goes  into 
bankruptcy ;  and  I  am  left  absolutely  with- 
out a  sou.  So  I  am  come  to  America  to 
seek  an  asylum  with  my  sister's  son,  Peter. 
I  am  arrived  to-day  even,  aboard  the  steam- 
ship La  Touraine.  Figure  to  thyself  that, 
fault  of  money,  I  have  been  forced  to  make 
the  passage  second  class !  To-morrow  I 
shall  proceed  to  Norr-veesh." 

*'  Have  you  written  to  Uncle  Peter  to  ex- 
pect you  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  Mais  non  !  I  have  not  thought  it  neces- 
sary." 

"  It  is  a  man  altogether  singular,  my  Uncle 
Peter,"  I  went  on, "  and  truly  I  think  that  you 
will  do  better  to  rest  here  at  New  York  a 
few  days,  in  attending  a  response  to  the  let- 
ter which  I  counsel  you  to  send  him.  He 
loves  not  the  surprises,  my  Uncle  Peter." 


194  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

"  I  shall  do  all  as  thou  desirest,  my  good 
Gregory,"  said  Uncle  Florimond;  and  he 
dispatched  a  letter  to  his  nephew,  Peter 
Brace,  that  very  evening,  setting  forth  the 
state  of  his  affairs,  and  declaring  his  inten- 
tion to  go  to  Norwich. 

That  night  and  the  next  he  slept  in  Mr. 
Finkelstein's  spare  bedroom.  On  the  even- 
ing of  the  third  day  an  answer  came  from 
Uncle  Peter,  professing  his  inability  to  do 
anything  to  assist  his  mother's  brother,  and 
emphatically  discouraging  his  proposed  visit 
to  Norwich.  Uncle  Florimond  could  hardly 
believe  his  senses.  "  Ah !  such  cruelty,  such 
lack  of  heart,"  he  cried,  "  it  is  impossible." 

"Vail,  Kraikory"  said  Mr.  Finkelstein, 
"  de  only  ting  is,  he'll  haif  to  settle  down 
here,  and  live  mit  me  and  you.  He  can  keep 
dot  spare  room,  and  we'll  make  him  as  com- 
fortable as  we  know  how.  Tell  him  I  be 
prout  to  haif  him  for  my  guest  as  long  as 
he'll  stay." 

"  No,"  I  answered,  "  I  can't  let  you  go  to 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  195 

work  and  saddle  yourself  with  my  relatives 
as  well  as  with  me.  I  must  pitch  in  and 
support  him." 

"  But,  my  kracious,  Kraikory,  what  can  you 
do  ?  You're  only  fifteen  years  old.  You 
couldn't  earn  more  as  tree  or  four  tollars  a 
veek  if  you  vorked  all  de  time." 

"  Oh !  yes,  I  could.  You  forget  that  I've 
been  studying  short-hand  ;  and  I  can  write 
sixty  words  a  minute ;  and  Mr.  Marx  will 
get  me  a  position  as  a  short-hand  writer  in 
some  office  down-town  ;  and  then  I  could 
earn  eight  dollars  a  week  at  least." 

"  Vail,  my  kracious,  dot's  a  faict.  Vail, 
dot's  simply  immense.  Vail,  I'm  mighty 
glaid  now  you  kept  on  studying  and  didn't 
take  my  advice.  Vail,  ainyhow,  Kraikory, 
you  and  him  can  go  on  living  here  by  me, 
and  den  when  you're  able  you  can  pay  boart 
—  hey  ?  And  say,  Kraikory,  I  always  had 
a  sort  of  an  idea  dot  I  like  to  learn  Frainch  ; 
and  maybe  he'd  give  me  lessons,  hey  ?  Aisk 
him  what  he'd  sharsh." 


196  MY    UNCLE    FLOKIMOND. 

"  Ah,  my  Gregory,"  sighed  Uncle  Flori- 
mond,  "  I  am  desolated.  To  become  a 
burden  upon  thy  young  shoulders  —  it  is 
terrible." 

"  I  beseech  you,  my  dearest  uncle,  do  not 
say  such  things.  I  love  you  with  all  my 
heart.  It  is  my  greatest  happiness  to  have 
you  near  me.  And  hold,  you  are  going  to 
gain  your  own  livelihood.  Mr.  Finkelstein 
here  wishes  to  know  what  you  will  charge  to 
give  him  French  lessons." 

"  Well,  I  guess  I  join  de  class,"  said  Mr. 
Marx,  when  he  heard  of  his  father-in-law's 
studies. 

"  So  will  I,"  said  Mrs.  Marx. 

"  Well,  I  guess  I  come  in  too,"  said  Mr. 
Flisch. 

"  And  I  want  to  learn  French  ever  so 
much,"  said  Rosalind. ' 

So  a  class  was  formed  ;  and  a  Marquis  de 
la  Bourbonnaye,  for  the  first  time,  no  doubt, 
in  the  history  of  that  ancient  family,  ate 
bread  that  he  had  earned  by  the  sweat  of  his 


MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND.  197 

brow.  It  was  a  funny  and  yet  a  pathetic 
sight  to  see  him  laboring  with  his  pupils. 
He  was  very  gentle  and  very  patient ;  but 
by  the  melancholy  expression  of  his  eyes,  I 
knew  that  the  outrages  they  committed  upon 
his  native  language  sank  deep  into  his  own 
soul.  He  and  Mr.  Finkelstein  became  great 
friends.  I  think  they  used  to  play  cards 
together  quite  six  hours  every  day.  Uncle 
Florimond  had  studied  English  as  a  lad  at 
school ;  and  by  and  by  he  screwed  his 
courage  to  the  sticking  place,  and  began  to 
talk  that  tongue.  It  was  as  good  as  a  play 
to  hear  him  and  Mr.  Finkelstein  converse 
together. 

In  due  time,  surely  enough,  Mr.  Marx 
procured  a  situation  for  me  as  stenographer 
in  a  banking-house  down-town.  My  salary, 
to  start  with,  was  seven  dollars  a  week. 
Joining  that  to  what  Uncle  Florimond 
earned,  we  had  enough  to  support  us  in 
comparative  comfort  and  without  loss  of  self- 
respect. 


IQ8  MY    UNCLE    FLORIMOND. 

And  now  Mrs.  Gregory  Brace,  who  is 
looking  over  my  shoulder,  and  whose  first 
name  is  Rosalind,  and  whose  maiden-name 
was  Earle,  warns  me  that  the  point  is  reached 
where  I  must  write 

THE   END. 


Quite  a  new  sort  of  history.  School  days  over, 
four  girl  friends  return  to  their  homes  and  life 
begins.  As  often  happens,  life  is  not  as  they 
picture  it.  What  it  was  for  the  four  and  how 
they  met  it  you  shall  read  in  the  quiet  book. 

After  School  Days.  By  Christina  Goodwin.  196  page*, 
ttmo,  cloth,  $1.00. 

It  is  a  comforting  fact  a  thousand  times  that 
nobody  knows,  to  be  sure  of  it,  what  is  good  for 
him  or  her.  Disappointments  are  often  shorn  of 
their  bitterness  by  the  remembrance  of  it.  Often 
what  we  look  forward  to,  hope  for,  strive  for, 
make  ourselves  anxious  about,  turns  out  to  be  of 
no  particular  value ;  and  what  we  fear  and  strive 
against  turns  out  good  fortune.  Rarely  is  this 
practical  wisdom  made  so  sure  as  in  this  whole- 
some history  out  of  the  stuff  that  dreams  are 
made  of. 

A  practical  help  for  a  girl  to  surround  herself 
with  pleasant  things  without  much  shopping.  The 
book  is  mainly  filled  with  ways  to  exercise  taste 
on  waste  or  picked-up  things  for  use  with  an  eye 
to  decoration  as  well. 

For  a  Girl's  Room.  By  Some  Friends  of  the  Girls.  238 
pages.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.00. 

A  friendly  sort  of  a  book  to  fill  odd  minutes, 
whether  at  home  or  out,  for  herself  or  another. 
By  no  means  on  "  fancy-work"  —  not  all  work  — 
Chapter  XXI  is  How  to  Tame  Birds  and  XXV  la 
What  to  Do  in  Emergencies. 


The  praise  of  a  book  of  travel  Is  rightly  held  to 
be  "  It  is  next  to  the  journey  itself." 

Borne  Things  Abroad.  By  Rev.  Alexander  McKenzia, 
D.  D.  450  pages.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

Yon  sit  by  your  evening  lamp  and  read,  as  tf 
from  the  letters  of  a  friend,  the  record  of  hi* 
daily  experiences.  He  sees  the  north  and  south 
of  Europe,  via  Constantinople  into  Asia,  the  Holy 
Land,  etc. 

As  in  the  case  of  friendly  letters,  your  enjoy- 
ment in  reading  depends  on  the  writer's  geniality 
quite  as  much  as  on  the  news  he  has  to  tell  of  his 
wanderings.  What  could  be  more  agreeable  than 
to  be  taken  thus  to  the  far-off  haunts  of  seekers 
after  knowledge  and  pleasure  without  the  toilsome 
goings  and  waitings  and  coming  back  at  the  end 
cf  it  all.  You  have  the  shade  of  your  own  home 
trees  in  the  hot  afternoon  and  delicious  sleep  in 
your  own  home  bed  and  the  sound  of  your  break- 
fast bell  in  the  morning;  nevertheless  you  have 
Men  Some  Things  Abroad  and  talked  them  over 
delightfully.  You  probably  know  quite  as  much 
About  them  as  many  who  bear  the  tosslngs  and 
dust  and  tossings  again  of  a  journey  a  quarter 
round  the  world.  For  our  part  we  ask  no  better 
company.  Dr.  McKenzie  tells  it  off  so  gayly,  we 
can  hardly  believe  in  the  hardships  of  seeing. 

The  book  has  the  air  of  talking  over  the  day  in 
the  cool  of  the  evening,  only  two  or  three  of  us 
there. 

Garland  from  the  Poets,  selection  of  short 
miscellaneous  poems  by  Coventry  Patmore,  with 
not  a  word  of  comment  or  explanation  beyond  the 
poets'  names.  250  pages,  128  poems.  16mo,  cloth, 
ft  canto. 


trlth  a  jumble  of  unconnected  information,  bat 
with  a  clear  impression  of  having  met  the  people 
and  lived  in  the  fatherland.  You  know  the  Ger- 
mans as  you  might  not  get  to  know  them  if  yon 
lived  for  a  year  or  two  among  them. 


Nobody  but  Mrs.  Diaz  could  get  so  much  wit, 
good  sense,  and  bright  nonsense  out  of  barn 
lectures  before  an  audience  of  nine  by  a  philoso- 
pher of  eight  years  and  a  month.  But  trust  the 
author  of  the  Cat  Book,  the  William  Henry  Letters, 
Lucy  Maria,  Polly  Cologne  and  the  Jimmyjohns. 

The  John  Spicer  Lecturer  B/  Abby  Morton  DU?-  09 
pages.  16mo,  60  cent*. 

All  in  perfect  gravity.  These  are  the  subjects : 
Christmas  Tree,  Knives,  Swapping,  Clothes,  Food, 
Money.  And  the  passages  where  the  applause 
came  in  are  noted.  The  applause  and  groans  art 
often  important  parts  of  the  text. 

Excellent  reading  are  sketches  of  eminent  men 
and  women  if  only  they  are  bright  enough  to 
make  one  wish  they  were  longer.  A  great  deal 
of  insight  into  history,  character,  human  nature, 
is  to  be  got  from  just  such  sketches. 

Here  are  two  bookf  uls  of  them : 

Stories  of  Great  Men  and  Stories  of  Remarkable  Women. 
Both  by  Faje  Huntington.  136  and  90  pages.  16mo,  cloth, 
60  cents  each. 

Both  the  great  men  and  remarkable  women,  of 
whom  by  the  way  there  are  twenty-six  and  twenty- 
two,  are  chosen  from  many  sorts  of  eminence; 
but  they  are  sketched  in  a  way  to  draw  from  the 
life  of  each  some  pleasant  practical  lesson.  Not 
designed  for  Sunday  Schools  apparently ;  but  good 
there. 


As  a  people  we  hold  opinions  concerning  the 
rest  of  the  world  notoriously  incomplete.  A  book 
that  makes  us  familiar  with  life  abroad  as  it 
really  is  is  a  public  benefit  as  well  as  a  source  of 
pleasure. 

The  common  saying  goes :  there  is  nothing  like 
travel  for  opening  one's  eyes  to  the  size  of  the 
world,  to  the  diversity  of  ways  of  thinking  and 
living,  and  to  the  very  little  chance  of  our  having 
hit  on  the  true  interpretation  of  everything;  no 
education  is  so  broadening.  But  it  is  true  that 
few  have  the  aptness  at  seeing  strange  things  in  a 
way  to  comprehend  them;  and  to  see  and  mis- 
judge is  almost  worse  than  not  to  see  at  all. 

There  is  no  preparation  for  travel  or  substitute 
for  it  that  goes  so  far  towards  mending  our  recep- 
tivity or  ignorance  as  an  agreeable  book  that 
really  takes  one  into  the  whole  of  the  life  one  pro- 
poses to  study.  There  is  an  excellent  one  out  just 
mow. 

Life  Among1  the  Germans.  By  Emma  Louis*  Parry.  34* 
pages.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

The  wonder  of  it  is  :  it  is  written  by  a  student- 
girl! —  that  a  girl  has  the  judgment,  the  tact,  the 
self-suppressing  watchfulness,  the  adaptability, 
freshness  and  readiness,  teachableness,  the  charm- 
ing spirit  and  manner  that  lets  her  into  the  inside 
view  of  everything,  makes  her  welcome  in  homes 
and  intimate  social  gatherings,  not  as  one  of 
themselves,  but  as  a  foreigner-learner ;  and  added 
to  all  these  splendid  endowments  the  gift  of  easy- 
flowing  narrative,  light  in  feeling  and  full  of  sub- 
stance ! 

The  book  is  wonderfully  full  in  the  sens«  of 
solidity.  Sentence  piled  on  sentence.  Little  dis- 
course; all  observation;  participation.  You  see 
and  share;  aud  you  rise  from  the  reading,  nofe 
* 


Dorothy  Thorn  is  a  first-class  American  ncvel. 

By  which  we  do  not  mean  to  declare  the  authoi 
a  Walter  Scott  on  his  second  book.  The  world 
may  take  its  time  and  rate  him  as  it  will;  but 
Dorothy  Thorn  we  are  sure  of. 

It  begins  as  life  begins,  wherever  we  pick  up 
the  threads  of  it,  human.  It  goes  on  the  same. 
The  tale  is  a  sketch  of  not-surprising  events. 
There  is  not  an  incident  told  in  the  book  that  does 
not  seem  tame  in  the  telling,  tame  with  the  unro- 
mantic  commonplace  of  life ;  and  yet  there  is  not 
a  spot  where  the  people  forget  their  parts  or  hesi- 
tate for  words  or  fail  to  suit  the  action  to  them : 
and,  however  easy  the  pages,  the  chapters  move 
with  conscious  strength;  and  the  whole  is  one; 
it  falls  with  the  force  of  a  blow. 

There  is  a  moral  to  Dorothy  Thorn ;  there  are 
more  than  one.  She  is  made  to  live  for  something 
beyond  the  reader's  diversion.  What  that  purpose 
is,  or  what  those  purposes  are,  is  not  set  down  in 
the  book ;  but  nobody  reads  and  asks.  It  is  high 
In  the  sense  of  being  good ;  and  good  in  the  sense 
of  being  successful.  It  touches  the  question  of 
questions,  work ;  and  the  wisdom  comes  from  two 
women  who  do  not  work.  It  touches  never  so 
lightly  the  rising  question,  the  sphere  of  woman  — 
the  wisdom  on  that  is  said  in  a  dozen  words  by  a 
woman  who  has  never  given  her  "  sphere"  an 
anxious  thought. 

Dorothy  Thorn  of  Thornton.  By  Julian  Warth.  270  paged. 
12mo,  cloth,  $1.25. 

There  is  hardly  a  less  promising  condition  out 
of  which  to  write  a  novel  than  having  a  hobby  to 
ride ;  and  of  hobbies  what  can  be  less  picturesque 
than  the  question  how  we  who  work  and  we  who 
direct  »re  going  to  get  on  together  harmoniously  F 

t 


The  iamily  Flights,  by  Edward  Everett  Hale 
and  Susan  Hale,  are  a  series  of  book  journeys 
through  the  several  countries  with  eyes  and  ear* 
Wide  open,  old  eyes  and  young  eyes,  and  ears.  The 
books  are  full  of  pictures,  and  fuller  of  knowl- 
edge not  only  of  what  is  going  on  but  what  has 
gone  on  ever  since  book-making  began,  and  fuller 
yet  of  brightness  and  interest.  You  see  the  old  as 
old ;  but  you  see  it ;  you  see  where  it  was  and  the 
marks  it  left.  You  see  the  new  with  eyes  made 
•harper  by  knowledge  of  what  has  gone  on  in  the 
world. 

In  other  words  these  books  amount  to  some- 
thing like  going  through  these  places  with  a  trav- 
eling-companion who  knows  all  about  them  and 
their  historiem. 

They  are  written  and  pictured  for  boys  and 
girls :  but  there  is  nothing  to  hinder  the  old  folk* 
going  along.  Will  you  go? 

Family  Flight  through  France,  Germany,  Norway  ani 
Switzerland.  405  pages. 

Family  Flight  oyer  Egypt  and  Syria.    388  pages. 

Family  Flight  through  Spain.    360  pages. 

Family  Flight  around  Home  (which  means  about  Boeton^ 
866  pages. 

Family  Flight  through  Mexico.    300  pagei. 

Each  8vo,  boards,  $1.75  ;  cloth,  $2.26. 

One  of  the  most  effective  means  of  exciting 
and  satisfying  zeal  for  knowledge  of  the  world  we 
have  in  books. 

A  good  book  for  young  folks  is  Ned  Mel- 
bourne's Mission,  not  too  good  to  have  a  spice  of 
life  and  adventure,  but  with  that  indirect  influence 
for  good  thinking  and  good  doing  that  ia  more 
potent  than  a  sermon  to  young  people. 
Vcd  Melbourne's  Mission.  13mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 


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